A Hundred Years
by findingmymuse
Summary: "I get to stay with you?" "Forever." This is the story of a hundred years of Nessie's life: a small part of her forever as she finds love and happiness, along with a little sorrow and pain, and learns her place in a world full of werewolves, vampires, humans, and half-breeds.
1. Year One

**Disclaimer: I am not Stephanie Meyer, though I am playing with her characters. Some of the quotes in this first chapter are from Breaking Dawn, but in Nessie's POV and not Jacob or Bella's. All else is mine. **

**I hope you all enjoy this story and please remember to leave reviews to let me know what you think. **

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(Renesmee: born)

_...bright, so many bright colors swirling in my mind as I tried to calm Mother down from her nightmares about that awful little boy with bright red eyes, though sometimes green, and those men in black cloaks terrorizing him...why won't she dream of me?...who is this little boy?..._

_...so hungry...need food...mmm, eggs...I love with Mother eats eggs...so much protein for me..._

_...bad dream again...trying to give Mother bright colors of love instead...she's woken me up, but that's alright...so hungry, no wait, that's Mother...I quiver as she throws it all back up..._

_...I kick Mother and she presses her hand against her stomach where I am trying to reach my own hand out to her...she throws up, shaking me, instead...just reach out to me, Mother...I'm scared..._

_..."I don't think I have food poisoning. __The dreams. Sleeping so much. The crying. All __that food. Oh. Oh. Oh." Mother's voice! Oh, but she seems scared..._

_..."He thinks you're pregnant." Father's voice, so sweet and gentle usually was now cold...I kicked against my Mother, wanting to let her know that we were all going to be okay...__"We're going to get that thing out before it can hurt any part of you. Don't be scared. I won't let it hurt you."...no, Father!..._

_..."I heard Bella made it back alive." That voice. So soothing and warm and even though it was being sarcastic, it felt right to listen to...I nudged my Mother...please make him come closer to me...he's MINE...need him..."Come in, please, Jacob" Mother said and my heart warmed as I felt him getting closer to me...Rosalie hissed and he almost backed away...no! Come closer!..._

_...so hungry, Mother...I'm sorry...I don't mean to hurt you..._

_...lonely...need him with me...Mother understood, though...She could get my "Jacob" to do anything...he kept visiting her, but that was okay because it meant that he was visiting me...this connection was like with my Mother, so deep...even though I had yet to see either of their faces, I knew that they belonged with me just like Father...the bonds were too strong..._

_..."If you think that imprinting could ever make sense of this insanity..." My Jacob, so very scared himself...I'm here for you...don't you feel it, too?..._

_..."I won't kill him." My always confused Mother, protecting me even though she has no idea who I am..."Oh, I hadn't heard the great news. A bouncing baby boy, huh?" My Jacob, can't you tell that I'm a girl? I'm your little girl!..._

_...they keep fighting: my Mother and my Jacob...stop it!..._

_..."We think the fetus might have an appetite closer to ours than to yours. We think it's thirsty." Carlisle's voice..."If the fetus is craving blood, it's not craving animal blood." My Father still hadn't connected to me, calling me a fetus but at least he seemed to know what I wanted..._

_...My Mother was an eager volunteer if it meant helping me. "Let's go for it. My first vampire act."...oooooh, blood, so much blood...Mother drank it and I enjoyed it...I love my Mother so very much...and the best part was that my Jacob stayed to comfort Mother, in his own sarcastic way..._

_...I kick, making Mother bend over...there's no room in here as I get bigger, I can feel something about my home breaking...not another rib, not to Mother...let me get out of here!..._

_...I can always tell when my Jacob is there or not__, even if he doesn't speak...the pull is so strong when he's near that I just want him to rub my home in my Mother's stomach so he will be closer to me...He never does...my Jacob, oh, just wait until I am out of here..._

_...Mother finally convinced Jacob to sit next to her for warmth. I make her hot and then cold, sometimes, but I love that I can make my Jacob near me because of that...there's another man who is also warm but he does not make me feel as happy, though he cheers Mother up with his jokes: Seth..._

_...My Jacob asked why Mother wanted him here, but he just didn't understand how much of it was me. I wanted him here...__"It feels... complete when you're here, Jacob. Like all my family is together. You're supposed to be part of my life  
-I can feel that, and so can you." Mother replied, though...She thought she was in charge of her connection with my Jacob..._

_...Keep talking, Mother. So soothing..."It... the baby likes the sound of your voice." Wait, did Father hear me?..."Holy crow, you can hear him!" Mother, so loud sometimes...I kicked reflexively and she winced..."Sorry, baby." It's okay, Mother...Keep talking, both of you...Mother and Father with their calming voices, finally both loving me...so happy..._

_...it's finally time!...I'm getting out of here, right now...oh, Mother, I didn't mean to hurt you...my Jacob is here, but then he's not and it's cold again inside the womb...I need out...Father, help me..._

His face was the first one that I saw. So handsome, my Father: strong jawline, piercing golden eyes, and hair that was russet and lush.

"Renesmee" My Father said my name and I wanted to smile, but I knew that Mother was still hurting. I had hurt her a lot trying to get out.

"Give her to me." Mother sounded weaker than I'd ever heard her, but suddenly I was being moved towards her. She was nothing like I expected: so pale, but not like Father, weak almost, brown eyes that stared at me like I had given her something to love for the first time, and limp brown hair pulled with sweat. But yet still wonderful to me.

"Renes... mee. So... beautiful." No, Mother. You are beautiful. You gave me life and so if I'm beautiful, it's because of you.

I love you, Mother. I bite her to tell her this, but that was not the right thing to do because Father scolded me and my Jacob got so scared and angry that he wouldn't even look at me.

It has been ten minutes since I was handed off to Rosalie. Rosalie is like my Mother while Mother is still sick and I love her, too, but . She feeds me blood from a bottle and I am thankful that I have someone who knows exactly what I want and when I want it.

She was the one holding me when I finally got my Jacob to look at me. His eyes met mine and I knew that he could finally feel the connection, too. His face, so drawn and angry instantly softened as his big brown eyes latched on to mine like he never wanted to let go of my stare. I was okay with that.

"Renesmee..." My Jacob said my name and grinned, his entire face lighting up.

Rosalie hissed. "You're not going anywhere near this baby, dog."

"But I have to." My Jacob smiled wider as he took a few steps towards me. Rosalie lowered me back into her lap and tried to feed me my bottle but I only wanted my Jacob now. I pushed it away with my hand, earning a gasp from my aunt. "She's clever, isn't she?" My Jacob asked, sitting on the couch next to Rosalie even though the entire pregnancy, they had been fighting. "I could just tell that she was clever."

"Don't think you fool me, Jacob Black." Rosalie hissed. "I know what you're trying to do and there's no way that I'm going to let you hold her. You wanted to kill her and I know what Bella's transformation has done to you. You're not thinking; go home, mutt."

My Jacob growled, "Don't_ ever_ mention that again. I would never kill Nessie."

"Nessie?" Rosalie asked, as I tried to wiggle my way towards my Jacob. My neck just wasn't strong enough yet.

"Renesmee is just too much of a mouthful." My Jacob's cheeks darkened. "Nessie is short and sweet, just like her."

"Are you stoned right now, mutt? Because your happy-go-lucky attitude is freaking me out." Rosalie said, still keeping me away from my Jacob.

"I'm not on drugs, I'm just happy. Can't you see that Nessie makes me happy?" My Jacob asked and I smiled up at him.

"Seriously, mutt, knock it off. Whatever sick game you're playing, I want you to stop." Rosalie hissed.

"He's not playing a game." Jasper spoke with amazement in his voice. He, Emmett, and Alice returned from hunting and were standing in the doorway of the living room. "Can you not see how happy they are when they are near each other?"

"Not all of us have your gift, Jazz." Alice said, though I could tell that she was pouting.

"Aw, none of that, darlin'." Jasper said, wrapping his arms around her small body in comfort. "I'm sure the

"Not as long as Renesmee is connected with Jacob, I can't." Alice looked like she might cry, though I suspected that she couldn't. Not like I could. Or Mother did when she saw me. "And that stupid mutt is never going to leave her side now."

"I don't understand. What's happening?" Rosalie asked, looking at her siblings in confusion then looking at me and my Jacob.

"The bond is just as strong as what I observed of Sam and Emily at the wedding." Jasper admitted.

"But they're, like, a couple." Emmett seemed confused, too.

"I imprinted." My Jacob smiled at the word on his lips, even though it was unfamiliar to me. "On Nessie."

"You stay away from my niece, you freak." Emmett crossed the room in a second and grabbed my Jacob by his t-shirt.

I let out a wail, not wanting to see my Jacob hurt, and all eyes in the room turned to me.

"Her first cry!" Rosalie seemed to forget about their little tift for a moment as my hands reached out for my Jacob again.

"Edward is not going to like this." Emmett said confidently as he stood in between my Jacob and his mate.

"What am I not going to like?" Father asked, though I knew that he could hear all of our thoughts. Just like he heard mine when I was still inside of Mother.

"Edward, I know that this is difficult for you..." My Jacob held up his hands as if my Father would fight him. "Listen to my thoughts. They are pure! I don't know why this happened, but you can't just take Nessie away from me. I won't let that happen."

_Mine. Give me my Jacob_. I thought stubbornly since words couldn't be formed yet on my lips.

"Oh. Oh." Father said, looking between my Jacob and me as I continued to wail. "Rosalie, let Jacob hold her."

Rosalie hissed, but obeyed. "If you harm her, mutt..." She threatened as I felt my Jacob's warm arms around me instead of Rosalie's icy ones.

"Nessie..." My Jacob smiled widely when I was in his arms and I grinned a toothless smile back at him. He picked up my bottle from Rosalie's hand and placed it on my lips. "That's a good girl." He complimented me and I hurried to finish the bottle to show him that I was worthy of it.

"I guess this changes things with the Pack, then, as well." My Father said as I stared up at my Jacob, my blood bottle nearly drained.

"You're not mad?" My Jacob asked Father, though not taking his eyes off of me for a second.

"I'm furious that you think you own my daughter." Father said, but he had a smirk on his face. "But, like you said, your thoughts are pure. As long as they stay that way, I see no point in starting a fight with you just yet, Jacob. It would be nice to have the Pack as real allies for once."

"I'm not sure about the rest of the Pack, but you know that I will always be here for Nessie." My Jacob vowed.

"How can you be so calm about this?" Rosalie asked my Father with a sneer.

Father just smirked again. "Bella will handle Jacob. If I know Newborns, she'll be focused on three things: her thirst, her mate, and Renesmee."

"Oh, Edward, you're so bad." Alice let out a giggle. "Sicking big bad Newborn Mommy on him is hardly fair."

"Jake's a big boy. He can handle himself." Father winked and I believed him.

I love my Mother and I love my Jacob. They wouldn't hurt each other. I was sure of it.

Rosalie, Father, and my Jacob took turns feeding me blood bottles every few hours. Occasionally, Esme, Carlisle, or Alice would get a turn in. The only ones who steered away were Emmett and Jasper. Emmett because he was afraid that he might break me (he thought he was so tough) and Jasper because he wasn't about to start testing his control where I was concerned. He could be in the same room as me without going for my throat, but I knew that it was still a little hard on my uncle. I was half-human, which meant that I had blood running through my veins. Not to mention that my diet consisted completely of human blood, so it was hard for Jasper to be near me for any long period of time.

For three days, we waited for Mother to wake up. Carlisle and Father ran tests on me, surprised that I was growing as fast as I was: three months old in just a few days. I didn't care, though. Not as long as I had my Jacob to play with while the tests were going on. I think that upset my Father, but he never spoke up about it. They also figured out my power: I could place my thoughts in their heads if I touched their cheek and thought something specific. My Jacob thought I was amazing and Father was enthralled about how I reminded him of himself and Mother. I liked to hear that I was like my parents.

Carlisle was concerned when I started biting my Jacob around mealtimes when he or Rosalie were too slow or when I was playing and wanted my way. My Jacob just thought that it was funny, since I didn't hurt him. Carlisle and Father were happy to figure out that I was not venomous because of these interactions, though.

When I finally saw my Mother for the second time, she was even more breathtaking than before. Her eyes now red, her face smoother, her skin paler, her hair shiny and full. I wiggled in Rosalie's arms, sitting up and controlling my movements like I couldn't just days ago. I smiled at my Mother, showing her my new perfectly-aligned teeth. Mother took a step towards me and everyone panicked. I knew my Mother wouldn't hurt me, yet she and Father had to explain her first hunting trip before they would back off and let Mother hold me. Actually, I think it was when I cried that they took notice. Only the second time I had ever let my voice ring out, my cry panicked everyone.

"What's the matter? Is she hurt? What happened?" My Jacob asked frantically.

Rosalie had learned that my Jacob had my best interests at heart and was actually reassuring him as she handed me over to him, but I kept crying. "She just wants Bella."

My Jacob was shaking when he finally handed me over to Mother. I put my hand on her face, eager to show her my ability, and showed her my only other memory of her and pushing forward all of my love for her with it so that she would know.

"I remember you, too." Mother said, leaning down and kissing my forehead.

"Haven't we experimented enough for one day? Bella is doing great, but let's not push it." My Jacob was getting uneasy and I could feel it.

"What is your problem, Jacob?" Mother seemed angry at my Jacob. This isn't how it was supposed to be. I love them both. I am safe with both.

My Jacob merely stared at me like he always did, with so much love. It took my Mother a mere three point two seconds to realize what had happened and suddenly I was in my Jacob's arms again and Father was constricting Mother. She was angry that my Jacob was holding me and insisted that Rosalie take me instead. Once I was settled and Father was standing protectively in front of me, Mother snarled at my Jacob.

"You didn't."

"You know that I don't have any control over it."

"You stupid mutt! How could you? My baby!"

"It wasn't my idea, Bella!"

"I've held her all of one time and you already think you have some moronic wolfy claim to her? She's mine."

"I can share..."

The other wolves were at his back as the fight went outside. I heard bits and pieces of the conversation because Rosalie was trying to shield me from it. The one part I did hear was my Mother screeching, "You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?" And then the sound of flesh being torn apart. I knew it wasn't my Jacob, though, because I felt his pain when it happened and I felt nothing now. It was Seth, I realized later, jumping in front of my Jacob when he wouldn't phase. They couldn't actually fight each other. Mother could fight my Jacob all day long, but my Jacob would never retaliate because he would feel my pain at my Mother being hurt. I just wished I could convey this to my Mother.

I was allowed to meet my Mother's father, Charlie, which was a difficult task. He made Mother nervous and I didn't like that.

"Renesmee, someone very special is coming to see you and your mother." Father said. "But he's not like us or even like Jacob. You shouldn't tell him things the way that you tell us."

_Like this? I can't talk to him like this?_ I asked, placing my hand on his face.

"Exactly." Father smiled at my understanding so quickly. "And he's going to make you thirsty. But you must not bite him, even just a little. He won't heal like Jacob."

_What about Jacob? _I touched his face again and he laughed. "No, I don't care if you bite Jacob, that's fine."

It got tense for awhile as my Jacob tried to make sure that he could be there even though my Father clearly wanted him to leave and make this a family issue with Charlie coming and all. My grandfather was old. Not in a bad way. Just in a way that I had never seen before. He wasn't perfect like my vampire side of the family or strong like my wolves. He was human. And I loved him instantly. He even had the same eyes as I did...the ones that my Mother had had and that I wished I could see on her again.

I looked three months old physically and that scared my grandfather, I think. Especially since I was only days old. He knew that I was Bella's daughter, even though he was told I was Edward's niece, and I think that I scared him a little bit. I didn't understand why. No one else had been afraid of me. They all loved me instantly. I didn't like this human business one bit.

Mother challenged Emmett to an arm wrestling match and I couldn't help but giggle when Mother decided to karate-chop everything in sight. My laughter startled everyone, though I wasn't sure why since they were all laughing, too. The sun broke through the clouds and Mother sparkled while I just shimmered and I placed my hand on her cheek to tell her this.

"You're the prettiest." Mother reassured me, though it wasn't true.

After that, nothing really changed. Every day I was measured four times, drank blood bottles, and slept in my Jacob's arms until it was nighttime and Mother and Father took me back to the cottage. The cottage was lovely. I had my own room with flowers on the walls and stars on the ceiling. I had clothes for playing dress-up, too. It was wonderful. I didn't even mind that I had to sleep in here all by myself because Jacob-wolf was outside my window protecting me while I dreamed.

Every little thing that I did amazed them. Crying, laughing, smiling, sitting up by myself, talking properly when I was just a week old ("Momma, where is Grandpa?" had been my first sentence outloud, by the way), walking at three weeks when I was tired of being left out of the loop in my crib. I looked nearly two years old at just three months of age, yet I could read Dickens.

I realized a lot of things about my family in just three months. Mother liked it when I called her "Momma" and when I called Father "Daddy," he lit up like a Christmas tree. These were the names that Mother, I mean Momma, had said to me every night when they were putting me to bed. "Momma and Daddy love you very much, Renesmee."

That was another thing. Momma called me Renesmee (and Daddy did when Momma was around), but everyone else called me Nessie like my Jacob did. I couldn't tell which I liked better. They were both me.

It was December when things started changing. That was when Irina found us while I was catching snowflakes when we were supposed to be hunting with Momma and my Jacob. When we returned home that afternoon, Momma relayed that she thought she saw one of our friends and Alice looked worried.

"They're coming for us. All of them." Alice whispered. "The Volturi. Not long. Little more than a month."

I knew enough about the Volturi to know that they were bad news. I just wanted my family to be safe. Emmett was the one who decided that we should try to fight them if it came to that, but to rally the troops regardless. We needed witnesses and we needed a lot of them if we had any hope of stalling the Volturi for even a moment.

In the end, Alice and Jasper left us a note saying that they'd send anyone they could find but that this wasn't their fight. I think that hurt my Mother almost as much as it did the rest of the family. I, especially, felt like that was a comment about me. Like I wasn't worth fighting for. But I let that thought slide as guests started arriving.

"What if they don't like me?" I asked, not knowing exactly how to ask the question with my gift like I usually did. I hated using my voice.

"You're very special, that's not a bad thing." Momma reassured me.

"This is my fault." I admitted, drawing the conclusion from the cause and effect that had led us here.

Momma, Daddy, and my Jacob were quick to argue with me. "No!"

That was when the Denali's showed up and I felt like I was being put on the spot like a shiny toy or a new puppy. Only, the stakes were much higher than them liking me or not. They had to believe what I said was true. I'm just glad that they did.

So many interesting people arrived over the next month! There were the American nomads: Peter & Charlotte, Mary, and Randall; the Denali Coven: Eleazar & Carmen, Tanya, Kate, and the vampire that became sweet on Kate, Garrett; the Egyptian Coven: Tia, Amun & Kebi, and Benjamin,; European nomads: Alistair, Charles, and Makenna; the Irish Coven: Liam & Siobhan, and Maggie; and the Romanian vampires who ruled before the Volturi: Vladimir and Stefan.

After meeting me and hearing the family's plea, only a few of our guests chose to leave. Carlisle made it very clear that it was their choice whether to stand with us or not.

We also had the wolves on our side. I was very proud of my Jacob for deciding to fight for me. I would fight for him.

Everyone trained for a month and before we knew it, it was January and the snow stopped falling. It was sticking to the ground just like Alice had predicted.

Momma dressed me specially for today: a pink frilly shirt that I knew was more cotton than lace, jeans that I knew I hadn't owned before since I was usually placed in dresses or skirts, purple tennis shoes, and a classic black jacket. I was also given a black leather backpack and I wore my locket with a picture we had taken yesterday of the three of us: Momma, Daddy, and me. Momma looked so sad as she adjusted the strap on my backpack.

"I love you more than anything." Momma said, not meeting my eyes.

"I love you, too, Momma." I touched my locket, knowing that she was worried. I tried to reassure her. "We'll always be together."

"In our hearts we'll always be together. But when the time comes today, you have to leave me."

_NO._ I placed my hand on her cheek and yelled at her for the first time. She couldn't ask me to do that.

"Will you do it for me? Please?" Momma looked almost scared.

_Why?_ I asked, needing to know.

"I can't tell you. But you'll understand soon. I promise." Momma, I wish you would just tell me.

I thought of Jacob, not remembering that I had my hand on her cheek still until she nodded in reply to my question. Would my Jacob be with me, if not Momma and Daddy?

"Don't think about it. Don't tell Jacob until I tell you to run, okay?" She asked me and I nodded. I would do this for Momma as long as I had my Jacob.

It didn't come to that, in the end. Aro was intrigued by me upon hearing of my existence in my Father's thoughts. Momma and I were beckoned by the Volturi leader. Jacob-wolf and Emmett came with us, along with Daddy, as Demetri and Felix protected Aro.

"Hello, Renesmee." The pasty royal vampire addressed me.

"Hello, Aro." I tried to sound as mature as I could. Even though I was physically two and a half, I wanted to prove that I was capable of reason. That I understood what was happening right now.

Aro held out his hand to use his ability to read my mind, but I placed my hand on his cheek instead. I showed him every memory I had ever had. Starting with the one of my Mother as she was finishing giving birth to me, showing him my feeding times with my Jacob and Rosalie, getting measured by Carlisle and Daddy, bedtime stories with Momma, playing dress-up with Alice and Rosalie, playing the piano with Daddy, wrestling with Emmett when my three overprotective family members weren't looking, listening to Jasper tell stories of his past, and helping Esme make dinner for my Jacob and Seth.

_I love them. _I told Aro. _Do not take my family away from me. I love them. _

The Volturi could no longer use me as an excuse as to why to fight, I could see that clearly on Aro's face when I released him. The Volturi leader smiled, sighed, and then said, "Brilliant."

"Please?" I begged, relaxing against my Mother's chest.

"Of course I have no desire to harm your loved ones, precious Renesmee." Aro smiled. He looked at my Jacob, having seen him in my thoughts as my protector.

"They don't belong to us, Aro. They don't follow our commands that way. They're here because they want to be." Daddy hissed. Oh, no! What did Aro see in my thoughts that made him want my wolves? As far as I could tell, the Volturi had always been disgusted by the wolves.

My Jacob growled as Aro continued. "They seem quite attached to you, though. And your young mate and your...family. Loyal."

"He's intrigued by the idea of...guard dogs." Daddy said to the rest of us who couldn't be in Aro's thoughts. The Pack snarled, frightening me.

"I suppose that answered that question. This lot has picked their side." Aro smiled like no one I had ever seen before. It was spooky.

Aro tried to use the wolves as an excuse to start the fight with my family, but this also proved difficult since the wolves are Shapeshifters and not actual Children of the Moon which are vampires' enemies.

Then Caius tried to stir up the Denali's by lighting Irina on fire for giving false witness. It almost worked, too. Tanya and Kate were frantic and it took many people to hold them back. But yet we did not fight.

Aro tried yet another tactic, to pester the witnesses into admitting that I was a danger because I grew so quickly. The witnesses were confused. They claimed that I could handle myself around humans (which I could!) but that it was alarming how quickly I was aging. Everyone started saying their goodbyes and I was placed on Jacob-wolf's back. Momma and Daddy told me that they loved me and that I would be safe with my Jacob. The Volturi were prepared to fight until Alice (oh, clever Aunt Alice!) showed up with Jasper, a red-eyed vampire woman named Huilen, and a half-breed like me named Nahuel. She came into the clearing not a moment too soon.

Nahuel and Huilen told their story, how he was born of a human woman that had died before she could be changed like my own mother had been. I felt sorry for the man who lived with his aunt now. He had changed her because he was venomous, unlike me. He told of how I would reach my maturity in seven years' time and then I would forever stay the same. I would not die a human death or grow so rapidly that I only had a short live to live with my family and my Jacob as I had feared. Aro seemed satisfied with this answer, though I figured that the Volturi weren't done with my family just yet.

"Dear ones, we do not fight today." Aro instructed and then, just as quickly as they had arrived, the Volturi were gone.

"I get to stay with you?" I asked my Mother over the cheering of our comrades.

"Forever." Momma promised.

"Forever." Daddy whispered.


	2. Year Three

**AN: If you couldn't tell, I'm addressing Nessie's age in the beginning of each chapter so you don't have to wonder for half of the chapter lol. Just keep an eye on that.**

**Also, Happy Valentine's Day :)**

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(Nessie: physical age ten; 3)

I woke up in a good mood this morning. Because today was Saturday and that meant Jacob-day.

I saw my Jacob every day, don't get me wrong, but Saturdays were special because I got to spend the _entire_ day with him.

No Pack business or high school for Jacob (he only had a month left until he graduated...having had to drop out when he started phasing at sixteen and couldn't focus on the Pack and school. For the past year and a half, he had been finishing at La Push High even though he was now twenty). I was so proud that my Jacob was responsible, but I wished that I could spend more time with him. He was my very best friend and I hated being away from him.

My favorite part of Saturdays, though, was that I had no school lessons from my family because the whole day was devoted to my Jacob. I loved that they wanted to teach me things, but I wanted a break from learning sometimes. And my family made sure that my learning went way beyond what a normal human would receive at school.

Daddy taught me to play the piano and how to speak foreign languages he deemed important (I currently was fluent in French, Spanish, and Italian; Latin was trickier). Momma and I discussed literature and poetry for hours if I'd let her, which I usually did. Jasper taught me history (both human and vampire) and Carlisle taught me biology and also first aid because if I was to be hanging out with the wolves, I would need that skill. The rest of my family was less specific school-wise in their teachings. Emmett gave me the sex talk when I was physically about eight...but then Daddy never let him be a part of my education again, Esme gave me life skills like cooking and gardening in her "home ec" lessons, and, between Alice and Rosalie, I learned how to balance a checkbook, organize a closet, and use the stock market productively...all while looking cute doing it.

"Momma, how do I look?" I asked my mother when I finished getting dressed this morning. Granted, it was before the sunrise and my Jacob wouldn't be here until eight, but still. I only needed about four hours of sleep a night (half of what a human would need, which seemed fair since I was only half of a human) and was usually up long before the day actually started. Saturdays, especially, were difficult for me to try and sleep in.

"You look beautiful, as always." Momma replied, smiling at me.

"You always say that." I huffed. At ten years old (physically, at least), I was starting to realize that my family had my best intentions at heart but that sometimes they over-exaggerated. It was hard to tell, though, because no one was really brutally honest with me...except maybe Leah. But she still got in trouble with my Jacob if she made me cry, so she never said too much.

"And I always mean it." Momma ran a brush through my ringlets. "You're getting so big, Renesmee."

"I'm only ten, Momma. I'm not that big." I said with a laugh, watching her frown through the mirror we were standing in front of.

"You're only three." My mother corrected. She seemed to be the only one in my family who wouldn't accept my physical age as my real one. I felt like I was ten. Just because I was born three years ago didn't mean anything to anyone except my mother. Just like she refused to call me Nessie, she refused to accept that I wasn't a toddler anymore. I think it scared her that my childhood was going to be shorter than hers had been. I didn't understand, though

"I know, Momma." I said, not wanting to hurt her feelings.

"There's my lovely girls." My father spoke up from the doorway of my bedroom. Momma dropped my brush and ran to his side like their bodies were magnets. She kissed him thoroughly, like I had seen them do every time they greeted each other. It was memorizing and so full of love and passion that after a second I had to look away. I picked up my brush and continued the even strokes required to untangle my hair. Since I wasn't allowed to cut it, over the past three years it had grown to my waist and was sometimes very difficult to deal with. Maybe for my next birthday, I would be allowed to trim it a little.

"How did you sleep, darling?" Daddy asked me when Momma finally untangled herself from him. I swear, she might no longer be a Newborn, but her urges towards my father were just as strong as they were when she was reborn.

I smiled at my father, "You already know." I teased him. "Or did I not have interesting enough dreams last night?"

"I try to stay out of your head, Nessie, you know that." Daddy looked sheepish.

"But..." I grinned. I knew why: I fascinated him. Since I was the only one who ever had to sleep, it was hard for a mindreader to resist. Actually, sometimes I could feel my mother sitting in my bedroom with her cheek pressed against my palm so she could enjoy the show, too. I didn't mind it, honestly. If I could see into my Jacob's mind, I would do it in a heartbeat since he was the most fascinating creature to me and he slept all the time.

"But, I just love watching what that creative little mind of yours comes up with." Daddy smiled back.

"See anything good?" I asked, not the least bit sarcastically. It always amused me what my family found relevant or interesting. It was just boring, ordinary things that had been on my mind all day.

"You, young lady, are not going cliff diving with Jacob today." Dad said jokingly, but with a hint of seriousness to it.

"That was just a dream..." I blushed. But I had wanted to try to convince my Jacob to take me cliff diving soon. I had seen the natives doing it every time that the weather turned warmer. But he always told me the same thing: when you're older. Well, I was ten this spring. That had to be old enough now.

"You know that he would never let her do it." Momma spoke up, trying to ease her husband's fears.

"You went cliff diving with Jacob when you were human." I protested, having heard the story from Seth. "And I'm only half-human."

"Yes, but you are much more special to Jacob than I ever was." Mother smiled sadly at some past memory that I wasn't a part of. "He would never let you put yourself in danger like that until he knew you were ready for it."

"I'm ready!" I whined, only realizing that I was proving their point after I had already said it.

"My little Renesmee, always in a rush to grow up." Momma said, her eyes glassy as she stared down at me. "If you'll excuse me, I have to go hunt." And with a flutter, she was gone.

"Didn't she just hunt last week?" I asked my father once we were alone. My family hunted every two weeks now that my mother was no longer a Newborn. I, however, could hunt every day and it would not be enough to sustain me on my own. That's where the human half of my DNA came in. I had to balance between drinking blood and eating food.

"I think it best that we let your mother have some time to herself." Daddy reasoned. "Now, how about some breakfast?"

"Do I have to?" I whined. I hated human food. The older I got, the more important it seemed that I maintained a balanced diet. My days of blood bottles were gone. Now I had to eat human food every day and was allowed to hunt animals twice a week to keep the two sides of my biology happy. Everyone won, except my taste buds. Human food was so...bland.

"I'm sure Jacob would appreciate it if you weren't cranky all day because you didn't eat breakfast." Daddy reasoned. Curse his reasoning. He knew that I would do anything for my Jacob. "What do you say? How about an omelet?"

"That sounds fine." I said, defeated. My Jacob would make me eat lunch with him later anyways so it wouldn't really matter.

My cheese-y, bacon-y omelet was tolerable at best. Eggs didn't taste like cardboard like most things did, but they still weren't very appetizing But I ate all of it because being around the wolves taught me never to waste anything, especially if it was on my plate.

After that, I played chess on the front porch with Daddy so I could keep an eye out for my Jacob. Chess wasn't exactly fair when you were playing against a mindreader, but I won half of the time. Daddy claimed that he wasn't listening to my thoughts, but I think that he just let me win on purpose since Alice and Momma were the only ones who would still play with him. It was a fun way to kill time for me, so I didn't mind the illusion.

"Nessie!" My Jacob yelled at me from across the front yard the second that he saw me.

"Jakey!" I yelled back, abandoning my game of chess with Daddy as I ran towards him.

He opened his arms and I flew into them with a bounding jump. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, even though I was probably getting too old to be carried by him anymore, and kissed his cheek in greeting. His bare chest was hot against my t-shirt, but I didn't mind the temperature.

"I missed you, Jakey." I admitted, but he just grinned.

"I saw you yesterday, pipsqueak." He teased. "But, I have to say that I missed you, too, Nessie."

My Jacob carried me back to the house so that I could tell my parents goodbye and grab my shoes. I forgot to put them on this morning because they felt so constricting. It wasn't fair. The wolves didn't have to wear shoes. They didn't even have to wear shirts most of the time.

"Yes, but you are not a wolf. You are a little girl." Daddy responded to my thoughts. "And little girls must wear shoes. Isn't that right, Jacob?"

I don't know what it is about my Jacob and Daddy but they had a tense relationship. Daddy always tried to prove that he was in charge of me. Which was ridiculous because Jakey was my best friend. What did my Jacob want to be in charge of my for?

"Yes, sir." Jakey said, putting me on the ground. "Nessie, why don't you go grab your shoes and then we'll go?"

I nodded and ran off towards my bedroom. I slipped on my purple Converses and shoved a ten in the pocket of my jeans along with my cell phone. I never knew what I would be doing on my Jacob-days and I wanted to be prepared for anything. As I skipped back into the living room, I overheard the men talking.

"Of course I think she's too young for cliff diving." Jakey stated, as if it was the most obvious thing.

"I just don't want you filling her head with promises you don't intend to keep. Or worse! Ones that you do!" My father sounded angry, but it was hushed.

"Nessie's my best friend. When she's old enough, I think she should go diving. But not now. I can promise you that, sir. She's just a little girl." Jakey said and it was difficult to keep a smile on my face as I came into view.

"You ready to go, Nessie?" My Jacob asked, the strain from his voice now gone as he spoke to me.

"Yup." I said, popping the 'p.' "Bye, Daddy." I kissed his cheek. "Tell Momma that I'll be back later."

"Alright, sweetie, have fun." Daddy waved until Jakey and I were out of his line of sight, walking hand-in-hand away from the cottage. My parents didn't approve of me riding on my Jacob's back when he was phased, so we always waited until we were far enough away that they couldn't stop us before he phased.

"So, where to, Miss Renesmee?" My Jacob asked, trying to sound proper but only succeeding in making me laugh. He called me 'Miss Renesmee' when he was being clever...or teasing my mother.

"Let's go to the beach!" I exclaimed, my eyes lighting up. My family wasn't allowed to go to the beach on the Reservation, so I could only go when my Jacob took me, and this was the first warm day of the spring.

"Your dad told me about your dream, Nessie." Jakey looked hesitant. "I don't think that cliff diving is a good idea..."

"I know that." I tried not to get irritated. "But, that doesn't mean Second Beach is off limits, does it? Come on, Jakey! It's warm and there's a chance of sun later in the afternoon."

He still didn't look convinced, so I continued.

"Besides, I miss Claire.' I pleaded, hitting the one spot that I knew he couldn't deny me of. I had one friend who wasn't in my family or the Pack and that was Claire Young, who had her own wolf in Quil. My one and only human friend meant a lot to me and my Jacob knew that.

"I'll call Quil." Jakey sighed. "I think it's his turn for babysitting, too."

Was that what my Jacob was doing? Just babysitting me so my parents could have some alone time? I thought that I was his best friend like he was mine. Before I could dwell on that too much, he was back. "Okay, Quil says it's good to go, so he'll meet us there. Give me a minute to go phase..."

Jacob-wolf came back twenty seconds later, his shorts tied around his hind leg, and a giant grin on his face. I couldn't help but smile back at him. His happiness was contagious. I took a moment to climb up on his back and settle myself against his russett fur. He took two giant bounds before I yelled, "Wait!"

I took the elastic rubber band from off of my wrist and tied my hair back with it. I nearly forgot about my hair. If it was difficult to brush this morning, I knew it would be impossible to control after the wind had gotten into it. I rubbed Jakey behind the ear when I was done, our signal that I was ready to go, and off he went again.

By the time we got to Second Beach, I was laughing hysterically and Jacob-wolf was ecstatic. He dropped me on my butt in the sand before darting off to the boulders where wolves phased. There weren't many trees near Second Beach, but there was a rock perimeter that kept tourists out. First Beach was for them. This beach was ours. The Reservation's, I mean. I don't own it. But, I feel like it is where I belong. That sounds dumb. Just forget it.

"Claire!" I exclaimed, running towards the five year old and her Quil who happened to be carrying enough beach supplies for the entire Reservation to play with. It was odd to see one of the wolves with a shirt on for once since I was so used to seeing them all bare-chested. It must have been for her parents, then, I suspected.

Claire smiled at me, "Nessie?" She asked. I forgot that I hadn't seen her in nearly two months since she had been sick with the flu and busy with Kindergarten. I had been physically a year younger then, since my growth spurts were uncontrollable. It was hard to believe that we looked physically about the same age when we first met. Now I looked twice her age in just two years.

"It's me. I'm just bigger is all." I told her and she wrapped her little chubby arms around me. "I've missed you, Claire."

She looked almost sad as she spoke. "Now you're too big to play with Claire."

"Never." I promised. "How about we go swimming?" I asked her, but really I was looking at Quil.

He was her protector like Jacob was mine. I needed his permission if we were on the Reservation, that much I had gathered throughout the years. You could want to do something all you wanted, but unless your protector said it was okay, you couldn't do it. I wasn't sure how this worked, but pretty much everyone that I knew had a protector. My Jacob's sister Rachel had Paul, poor Emily with the scars had Sam, and sweet Kim had Jared. Leah was one of the only girls that I knew from the Reservation that didn't have a protector, but she was her own protector, I think.

"Or would you rather make a sandcastle on the beach and then after lunch we can all go swimming, Claire-bear?" The thing about protectors is they never make it seem like it was their idea to keep you away from all of the fun. It's subtle.

"CASTLE!" Claire yelled, smiling up at her wolf. "Nessie and Jake are gonna make one, too, right?"

"Of course we will." My Jacob said, coming up behind me and leaning his arm on the top of my head.

"Jakey, you're messing up my hair!" I protested, regretting it as soon as his warm arm was gone.

So, we set to work making our castles. Jakey and I tried to outdo each other's castles and ended up with two extravagant castles by time lunch rolled around. Quil claimed that he was helping make 'Princess Claire's Castle,' which was a giant pile of sand with four buckets turned over as the towers. He even found her a couple of sticks and tied leaves to them as flags. Claire wasn't that good at actually making the castles, so she played with a little mound of sand off to the side of her castle while Quil finished his masterpiece.

"What's that, Claire-bear?" Quil asked, examining the mound that was glittering with shells and stones when she claimed she was finished. "Is that a castle?"

"It's yours!" Claire smiled. "Right next to Princess Claire's Castle because a princess needs her Quil near her or else she can't sleep at night."

"That's very thoughtful." Quil looked like a proud parent. "It's such a shame that the tides will probably wash it away by the time we get back here from lunch."

Claire looked like she might cry when she heard this news.

"Do you want me to take a picture of you guys with your castles?" I asked, pulling out my Iphone. It had been a gift from my family on my third birthday so that they could always reach me even when I was with Jacob. "Then I can send them to you, Quil, and you can print it off or something."

"Would you?" Quil asked and Claire smiled. "Yay! Nessie!"

Quil had to sit on the ground to be in the shot with both Claire and the castles, but I had never seen him happier to have sand in his shorts or even in his hair when Claire got bored of taking normal pictures and started throwing sand at him with little childlike giggles. I kept taking pictures, though. Their interactions were remarkable. It reminded me of not long ago when I was that little. I think if I threw sand at Jakey now, he would get upset. I wasn't little anymore.

"What about our castles?" Jacob asked in protest when I wasn't showing him any attention and Quil had managed to get Claire in a tickle fight, abandoning their castles. "I think ours are just as worthy of documentation, Miss Renesmee."

"Hear-hear!" I teased. I took a few of my Jacob posing near our castles before he pulled me towards him. He put me on his knee and held the camera at arms' length (which for him was pretty far) and clicked it off a few times. I laughed when I looked at them. The few that weren't out-of-focus were ridiculous. Jakey was sticking out his tongue or crossing his eyes or just being typical Jake in all of them. But that's what was so great about them. They captured _him_.

"You want ham or turkey?" Jakey asked me when he saw the over-sized lunch that Quil had packed for the four of us.

"Is it fresh?" I asked, not meaning to snap at him, but not wanting to eat human food again today. The omelet was still trying to settle in my stomach.

"Just pick one, please, Nessie." My Jacob seemed tired as he lowered his voice. "Your family set up your diet like this for a reason."

"It's not fair. I'm so thirsty, Jakey." My voice was low enough so that Claire couldn't hear us. I tried not to cry, especially since I was in front of Claire who was five years younger than I was physically.

"They're gonna kill me for this..." He muttered under his breath, but Quil and I both caught it.

"Please, Jakey?" I asked, hoping that I had gotten my way that easily. "I'd settle for a rabbit. Please? I'm so thirsty."

"We'll go hunting tonight before I drop you back off, okay?" My Jacob sighed. "But you have to eat lunch with Claire or you'll hurt Quil's feelings." We both knew that wasn't true. But Claire would think that I was offending Quil by not eating his lunch and then she would be offended for him. That happened a lot with protectors.

"I'd like ham, please." I said loudly, enough so that Claire could hear us.

"Ham's my favorite, too." Claire beamed.

That left Jakey to eat almost all of the turkey since ham happened to be Quil's favorite, too.

When we packed up our stuff and Claire and I changed into swimsuits (Jacob had more of my clothes at his house than his own, so he ran back to get one for me), we took to the water. Though it was chilly at first, the sun broke through the clouds and started warming it up before too long. Quil sat with Claire in the shallow end while I started walking farther in the water to where Jakey was wading.

"Nessie is pretty." Claire told Quil and it took me a moment to realize what she meant. I was shimmering under the sunlight, not quite sparkling like my family did, but dazzling to humans nonetheless. I had a little glow to my skin.

"Not like you, Claire-bear." Quil smiled at her. It was the same kind of response that I would have gotten from my Jacob if I had told him that I thought Claire was pretty. I didn't understand how our protectors couldn't see the beauty in the other child. It bothered me; not because I wanted Quil to think I was pretty, but because I suddenly wondered how much my Jacob actually thought of me and how much was because of his protective bond over me.

_Do you think that Claire is pretty?_ I asked Jakey when I was close enough to press my hand to his cheek.

"What has gotten into you today, Nessie?" Jakey asked instead. "You are the prettiest little girl I know."

_I don't want you to just tell me that I'm prettier. _I huffed. _I'm not fishing for a compliment like Aunt Rose does._

"But you are, Nessie! You are adorable." Jakey protested. "I can't even compare you to Claire..."

_You're just saying that because Claire is Quil's, aren't you? _I thought. I don't know why I was so angry about this. I knew that my Jacob cared about me and wanted me in my life, but I couldn't deny the facts any longer.

"No one belongs to anyone, you know that..." Jakey seemed at a loss for words.

_I know about the protector magic and what it does to you guys. I'm ten now. I think I deserve the truth. _I thought to him stubbornly.

"Protector magic?" My Jacob raised an eyebrow, but there was no surprise in his eyes.

_Like Quil protects Claire and you protect me...but it's more than that. I just haven't figured it all out yet._ I thought back, keeping my hand steady on his cheek even though we were wading into deeper water.

"I'll tell you what. I can tell you the whole story now and take you home when we're done...or I can take you hunting every Saturday as long as we can keep it a secret from your parents and I will tell you the whole story when you're older like I planned." My Jacob bargained.

Three hunts a week? My mouth started watering at the thought. Ooooh. But I really wanted to know about my hold on my Jacob... Only Jakey could put me in this position.

"Every Saturday?" I asked aloud, knowing that my curiosity could wait a little longer, but my thirst probably couldn't.

"Every Saturday." My Jacob promised, smiling that he won.

"And you'll tell me when I'm old enough?" I asked, not willing to give in that easily.

"I swear to you that I will, Nessie. Just like I was always planning." Jakey promised.

"Daddy says swearing is bad." I giggled, happy that I seemed to have won this battle.

"Well, we wouldn't want to upset your Daddy would we, Miss Renesmee?" Jakey teased.

"Noooo!" I kept giggling, though it got harder to focus on swimming.

"Hey, Jake!" Quil called out and it was only then that I noticed how far out we had swum or how much the sun had set in the sky. "I gotta take Claire home!"

"I'll see you later!" Jakey yelled back, then turned to me. "You ready to head back yet, Nessie?"

_I wanna see how far I can go down._ I sent him, showing him a picture of the fish that we could see when we were in the shallow water and a question of what we might see this far away from shore. Usually we stayed closer to the shore since I was "only ten" and Jakey didn't like pushing my limits. But I was stable right now and besides, I was a half-vampire. Vampires were meant for the water. It was part of their defense against wolves.

"Nessie...I don't think that's a good idea..." My Jacob sounded concerned again. I hated it when he did that. Everyone did that voice. Because I was little-bitty Nessie who couldn't do anything that everyone else could.

I showed him my anger at always being left behind and Jakey winced. _It's not fair, Jakey. I just wanna see the fish. _

"Nessie, it's not that I'm trying to keep you from the fun. It's just that there could be sharks out here and you mean too much to me to lose." Jakey admitted.

_I'm a predator, too. They'd get scared of me._ I widened my teeth to look as ferocious as I had seen my family do when they hunted.

"Nessie!" My Jacob tried to scold me, but he was laughing. "Ah, my little Nessie the predator!"

"Please, Jakey? I promise I won't bite." I used my voice, willing to whine if I had to. "We're probably not even far enough out for there _to_ be sharks."

There was one, though. And I caught it! Emmett would be so proud, but as I tried to force it up towards the air by twisting its fin, Jakey caught my arm and pulled me up without my prize. Jakey took a giant breath once we were above water. Wolves can't breath underwater for as long as vampires can. Even halfsies like me.

"Nessie, this is why I didn't want you exploring!" He chastised me once he had caught his breath. "You always want to hunt. Even when it's dangerous."

"It wasn't dangerous. I had it under control." I said back.

"And what about the people on the beach that might see a little girl eating a shark." Jakey questioned, seriously. "All that blood from that far away? They'd think it was a shark attack and where would that get us?"

"I didn't think about it like that." I mumbled.

Jakey started swimming back to shore alongside me, not saying a word. When there was sand under our feet and towels around our waists (okay, just mine), I looked at my protector sheepishly.

"Does this mean that you won't take me hunting now?" I asked, trying not to blush as I thought about how childish I was acting.

"What am I going to do with you, Nessie?" My Jacob asked, but he was smiling at me.

I smiled. "Love me?"

Jakey let out a bellowing laugh. "That I can do, kiddo." He ruffled my damp hair and smiled at me again. "Come on, let's go snag you a deer."


	3. Year Four

**(Nessie: physical age thirteen; 4)**

"Alice, you have to get Jasper out of here NOW!" I heard my Daddy's voice from the other room and opened my groggy eyes.

It took me a moment to realize I wasn't my room in the cottage. I was in one of the spare bedrooms in the Cullen Mansion, the one that had been set up for me whenever I wanted to get away from my parents...to give them "alone time." Which was a lot more often now that I was old enough to realize exactly what that meant.I had fallen asleep over here last night. Which was strange because it was morning now. I was a half vampire. I only needed about four hours of sleep...but I had gotten at least nine last night and I still felt exhausted.

"I don't understand. Why does Jazz have to leave? Is it Nessie? You know I can't see her future that well." Alice sounded irritated, but more at herself than at being told to leave.

"Alice, please. Trust me. It's for Jasper." That was all my father had to say and I knew that my aunt and uncle would leave.

I felt hot and sticky and just overall miserable. I had never been sick a day in my life since vampire side of DNA usually fought off any virus or flu that my body would normally have gotten if I had been fully human.

"Mooooommmma!" I whined, knowing that my mother would be within earshot if my father was around. She would know what to do since she was the last one who had been human. I would have called for Carlisle, but he was at the hospital working today. Actually, the house was pretty much empty today. Emmett and Rosalie had gone to pick up an old friend of the family, Nahuel, and Daddy had just sent Alice and Jasper away for whatever reason. That just left Grandma Esme and my parents.

"How are you feeling, sweetie?" Momma asked, bringing in a cup of tea and a heating bag with her.

"I just want to curl up in a ball and die." I admitted. "What's wrong, Momma? Is this what the flu feels like?"

Momma laughed outright, then realized it was probably hurtful and apologized. "I'm sorry, Nessie. I just remembered what it felt like to be human for a moment. I remember, sort of fuzzy, of a time when I thought that I had the flu like you do."

"It's not the flu, is it?" I asked, not liking the way that she said it.

"No, honey, it's not the flu." Still she smiled. "Do you remember when Uncle Emmett gave you that lesson about the birds and the bees that got him in trouble with your Daddy?"

"Yeah, I was eight and Daddy got real mad." I said, not seeing how this had anything to do with my problem.

"You were two." Momma corrected, never letting me forget my real age for a second. I didn't feel like I was four right now. I felt like I was thirteen. Actually, I felt like I was dying.

"What does that have to do with anything?" I asked, getting impatient with my mother even though I was always calm with my family. "Momma, what's wrong with me?"

"You're menstruating, honey." She said it was like the most wonderful thing in the world. "You're becoming a woman!"

I didn't believe her until I ran to the bathroom and saw for myself. I came back into my room and clung to my mother's open arms.

"I didn't think that I could do this." I said, unable to stop my sobs. This should have been a good thing. My family had always wondered if I could ever reproduce in the future since vampires couldn't and humans could and I was both. Since there were so few of us half-breeds, there wasn't really a lot known about us other than after seven years, I would be fully grown and that female hybrids are not venomous even though the males are.

"This is wonderful news, Renesmee!" Momma smiled. "Everyone has been so worried that you couldn't have a child and now it is a possibility. Everyone is going to be so excited when they hear the news!"

"Everyone?" I asked, thinking of only one that I cared about.

"Well, you live with vampires, honey." Momma chuckled. "We _have _to tell the family."

"They can smell it?" I asked, mortified. As if I didn't feel bad enough right now.

"Even though the blood does not smell appealing, it might still trigger something in Jasper." Momma explained. "That's why your father sent him away."

"Everyone will know, won't they?" I asked, still thinking about the one person that I cared about finding out that I was now becoming a woman.

My mother seemed to understand, though she didn't seem to be too happy about it.

"Do we have to tell Jake?" I asked, looking up into my mother's golden eyes.

"Oh, honey." Momma looked sad for me. "He has werewolf senses...he's going to know."

"Oh god!" I threw my body against my pillow, burying my head in it.

"It's not that big of a deal." Momma tried to brush it off. "Jacob won't think any differently of you."

"You said so yourself that it was wonderful news. Imagine how everyone else is going to react. You're my mom. You _have_ to think this is a great thing." I was pouting and I knew it. "They're all going to think I'm a freak."

"Renesmee, you are not a freak. This is a natural process that all girls have to go through when becoming women." Momma smiled. "Everyone will be ecstatic that you are going through this change!"

Then I realized something that had slipped my mind before. My female relatives could not have children because their bodies stopped changing like mine had just started. I had been spoiled my entire life by my aunts and grandmother and even my mother because they thought that I was the last chance that any of them would have to get to help raise a (mostly) human baby. But with me getting my period, they would all potentially get that chance again.

"They're going to be ecstatic about this." I repeated, but my tone was not a happy one. "Aunt Rose is probably going to want me to go out and get pregnant right now so she can have another baby to play with. And Aunt Alice will probably throw me a 'you're able to conceive' party or something outlandish to honor my period...Momma, please don't tell anyone about this."

"I'm sorry, honey, but by now I'm sure your father has had to tell everyone." Momma said honestly. "Your father had to shoo out Alice and Jasper so it wouldn't trigger anything. And Carlisle will probably need to know soon so that we can get you a check-up. I'm sure that even Emmett and Rose know about it now."

"Weren't they going to pick up Nahuel?" I asked, my face still pressed against the pillow as the mortification sunk in. I just wanted to die of my shame._ Everyone_ was going to find out! I was going to be that freak hybrid that couldn't stop bleeding from her stupid uterus. As if the pain in my lower back wasn't enough.

"Oh, that's great, though, Renesmee!" Why in the world was my mother so happy about Nahuel of all people finding out? We hadn't talked to the Amazonian hybrid since the Volturi battle four years ago. I didn't even think the family was that close to him or his Aunt Huilen.

That was when I started crying uncontrollably.

"Honey, Nahuel has three sisters just like you. I'm sure that at least one of them went through what you're going through right now." Momma said positively, looking on the bright side of my shame.

"NESSIE!" _My Jacob was here._

_"_What's he doing here?" I whispered frantically.

"Nessie, sweetie, I'm sure that Jake just wants to help." My mother's words were friendly, but her tone was irritated. I couldn't understand why. She loved that I had a good friend in my Jacob.

"Nessie, where are you?" Jakey sounded worried and I listened to his footsteps slowly getting closer to my spare bedroom.

"Oh, god! Momma, send him away!" I cried even harder into my pillow.

"I know that you're upset, Nessie." He sounded like he was the one in pain and not me. "Your father called and told me about, well, he called me and I'm here to help cheer you up."

"I'm fine, Jakey." I said unconvincingly. "Momma just says I need a hot water bag and some tea. I'll be fine in a few days, really."

"Let me in, Nessie." His voice was so worried that even though I didn't want to see him because I was embarrassed, I didn't want to hurt his feelings even more.

"Do you mind?" I looked up at my mother.

"Jake, come on in." Momma rolled her eyes.

And there he was...my Jacob in all of his glory: those big brown eyes staring at me frantically with all the care in the world, that crazy too-long hair falling into his face even though he should have cut it weeks ago, that big Jacob-grin on his lips when he saw that I was okay, that sunkissed russet skin exposed to the world with only a pair of blue jean shorts covering him, his rippling six-pack making it difficult to focus on anything but him.

I don't know when my feelings for my best friend started to change into something, uh, not so friendly but lately I had begun to appreciate all of the parts that made up my Jacob.

"Did you really not have time to put on a shirt?" My mother complained. I almost hissed at her; who was she to tell my Jacob to put on all of his clothes!

"I just got off patrol, Bells. Calm down." Jakey rolled his eyes as he came to sit on the bed with the two of us. I tried to recoil from him but he put his giant arm around me. The warmth radiated off of him and even though I wanted to just die in peace, having him with me made me feel better.

"I think I'll go make you another kettle of tea. I'm sure that Esme will need some help preparing lunch." Momma said, giving my Jacob a strange look before she left.

We sat in silence, Jakey a good foot away from me, for what felt like forever. When I got a really strong cramp, he reacted with me and placed his hand on my stomach for a few seconds. When my cramp subsided, he removed his hand and went back to where he was on the bed.

"Can you-?" I started to ask, but chickened out.

"What is it, Nessie?" Jakey sounded eager to do whatever it was that I asked. "What do you need?"

"Um, can you keep your hand on my back?" I tried not to blush but could feel the heat rising to my cheeks anyways. "It helps the cramps better than the water bottle did."

Jakey moved closer on the bed, letting his giant arm encircle me in a hug, his bare chest pressed against my back so that every inch of my torso was being touched by my Jacob. I felt my body reacting to his touch and tried to hid my blush.

"Is that better?" Jakey asked, placing a kiss on the back of my head.

"Uh-huh" was all that I could respond. My head was spinning with the sensation of being so close to Jakey like this. I didn't know what came over me but I wanted to turn around and kiss him back. My best friend!

We stayed like that until Emmett and Rosalie returned with Nahuel. Rose was gushing at the news of my blooming womanhood and shooed my Jacob out of the room so she could talk to me. He waited patiently in the living room until I was released, my cheeks red with embarrassment at the speech that I received from my too-informed aunt. Jakey just smiled at me when I came into the living room. But so did Nahuel.

"Why, young Renesmee, womanhood suits you." Nahuel greeted me cheerily. I tried to think of something to say back to that, but since I had only met him once, I wasn't on personal terms with the Amazonian.

"Hello, Nahuel." I said lamely, surprised at my completely formal tone.

"I hear that you wanted to speak with me, about my sisters?" Nahuel asked.

"Do you guys wanna give us the room?" I asked my family, though I knew that the vampires would find out about everything that we discussed. I at least wanted the illusion of privacy.

"Sure, honey." Momma smiled. Rosalie looked excited, Esme looked worried, and Emmett thought that it was hilarious but they all left nonetheless. Soon it was just me and Nahuel...and my Jacob.

"Do you mind?" I asked, feeling irritated that my crush wanted to be a part of probably the most important conversation of my life. It felt weird that he cared so much if I could have children or not. I mean, a small part of me was very very thrilled because it gave me hope that maybe one day he would still care about this topic. But mostly I was embarrassed.

"Oh, you meant me too?" Jakey looked confused.

"I want to talk to Nahuel alone, Jakey. Just leave, okay?" I said, realizing my voice was harsh only after I had already said it.

"Yeah, okay, Nessie." The look on my Jacob's face nearly broke my heart. "I'll come by and see you tonight?"

"Yes, of course." I responded quickly, eager to make up for hurting his feelings. This was my best friend, my Jacob. Just because I had a stupid little crush on him didn't mean that I had to take out my frustrations on him.

"I'll see you later, Nessie." Jakey gave me a small smile before leaving. It pained me for him to leave.

"You still seem quite attached to that wolf." Nahuel mused, watching me watching the door.

"Oh, Jakey? Yeah, he's my best friend." I said with a shrug, blowing it off. "Did you want to talk about him or about my family's growing concern about my changing body?"

"You'll be fully grown in a few years..." Nahuel stated what I already knew. "Though, you'll never really stop changing."

"But I won't age." I protested, thinking about how much I didn't want my werewolf best friend or my vampire family to outlive me.

"No, no, little one. You will eternally as old as I am." Nahuel smiled. "I meant the other part of you that has recently started to change..."

I blushed. "Oh. That." Could he really tell just by looking at me that I was menstruating? Or...oh, god. Could he smell the blood? I knew that he knew that I was on my period because Rose and Emmett told him, but the look on his face told me that he would have known about it anyways.

Nahuel laughed like it was the most hilarious thing on the planet. "Yes, you will continue to menstruate your entire existence just like my sisters did."

"So I could have children even once I've stopped aging?" Carlisle would be very pleased to hear about any certainty about my future that Nahuel could tell me.

"I would think so." Nahuel said thoughtfully. "One of my sisters did."

"How old was she?" I asked, excited at the idea. I was no where near ready to have a child and I knew that though I might be physically done aging when I was seven, I wouldn't be mature enough emotionally to want a baby then (not to mention how my parents would react). But I did want one eventually. And, who knows, maybe I would be ready in a few years if I could find someone to marry me. "How do you know that it was after she stopped aging?"

"Time is strange for us, but I do know that it was after. Two of my sisters were fully grown before I was born and Jaquin was one of them."

"Oh, please, Nahuel. You must remember the details." I tried not to get frustrated at him.

"Aunt Huilen and I went to find her and Nadel after the Volturi battle." He looked thoughtful. "We went to find my father to warn him of what we had told them. As much as I hate the man, I did owe my existence to him and I would never want my sisters to be harmed because of the information that Aro ."

"But your sister was pregnant?"

"No, but she had a son. He was my father's pride and joy like I never was. A real killing machine."

"His father was a vampire?"

"His father was my father."

I felt like I might throw up. "But she was his daughter."

"My father has no boundaries or sense of family. He created Jaquin, therefore she was his to do with what he wanted, including create a unique child...much more special than a hybrid like you or me."

"How special?" I asked. I thought that half-vampires were rare enough, but Nahuel was saying that there was a quarter human child out there?

"He looked like he was ten, but when I spoke to Jaquin, she said that Utwan had been like that since a few months after he was born. Not enough human to change and develop, but too vampire to have the process continue. Utwan was the perfect killing machine since he was practically an immortal child."

"The Volturi wouldn't stand for a child like that." I said, not meaning to sound so blase about it.

"They didn't." Nahuel looked like he might cry, though the tears didn't leave his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Nahuel."I said and even though I still didn't know him that well, I meant it. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Let's just say that we are a rare breed now, practically extinct." Nahuel tried to joke but I could tell it angered him to think of the memories.

"They killed your sisters, too?" I asked, but I could already tell.

"Utwan first, then my father, and poor, confused Jaquin couldn't stand the sight of the two of them dying and started attacking Alec who instantly killed her."

"And your other sister?" I asked, trying to be gentle. "What happened to her?"

"She refused to come with Huilen and I before the ambush began, even though a call from Alice tipped me off. Whenever Nadel caught up to us, she had been badly wounded. A lesson from the Volturi to see how much a half-vampire can withstand and still live. Nadel died in my arms two days later. Apparently, her body really couldn't handle as much as the Volturi thought she could." He gave me a small smile, though it was sad. "We are half-human, after all."

"I have a younger sister, Poppy, but she was not with my father or other two sisters. I wish to find her very badly. She would be twenty-one soon, yet I have not seen her in fourteen years, not since she fully matured. I had hoped to find her after the Volturi battle, but I have had little luck. Wherever she is, she does not want to be found."

"I'm sure that if my family found out that you were looking for Poppy that they'd help search for her. Aunt Alice's visions might be blurry around our kind, but she is pretty determined when she finds a good cause." I spoke up, knowing that it was true.

"Thank you, young Renesmee." Nahuel looked truly grateful.

"Please, call me Nessie." I smiled at my new friend.

I could tell that we could become really great friends easily if we wanted to. I felt a kindred spirit in Nahuel that I had never felt before with anyone else. Even Jakey didn't really understand me completely. He had as many questions as my family did about how I would end up. Nahuel, on the other hand, had answers.

I felt like we should stick together; as Nahuel said, we were a dying breed.


	4. Year Five

**(Rennie: physical age fifteen; 5)**

"Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!" I yelled, trying to get my best friend's attention from across the school parking lot.

I started school at Forks High in August as a sophomore and had been instantly popular but my best friend would always be Jacob. Unlike my vampire relatives when they went here, I was completely accepted because I didn't have golden eyes or a crazy thirst for all of that human blood. The rest of my family wanted to experience my first high school experience (since they were sure that I would want to join them in a few years when we had to move and continue to repeat high school for the rest of my life-as if!) with me but I had put my foot down.

I wanted to go to Forks High by myself like as normal a human as I could be. I didn't need my parents and aunts and uncles going to classes with me. Besides, it would freak the humans out to see a group that big come back to the area. Especially after just five years. The Cullens "adopting" one more kid wasn't that weird. Seeing me sitting next to graduated students who hadn't aged _at all._ Well, I'm sure even the most naive of the humans would have noticed that. I could have gone to any school in the area, but I wanted to go to FHS. I needed to stand alone in a place that we knew was already safe.

Oh, except for Nahuel.

He enrolled with me since this would be his first go-round, too. I think secretly that my parents had put him up to it, but I didn't take offense to it. I would rather have a friend with me than my overprotective parents. I think that Nahuel liked embracing his half-human side a lot more than he thought he would, though, because he had even made a few friends here. He wasn't as popular as I was, but then again, Nahuel had only been interacting with humans for a year since he came to live with the Cullens. Huilen was still searching for his sister, Poppy, but she believed that it was a lost cause and only humoring her nephew so that he could enjoy his life. Being around me and Bella had been good for his temperament.

I wished that Jake had been allowed to go to school with me too, then I would have both of my guy best friends with me all day, but since Jake looked like he was twenty-five and had finally graduated two years ago from La Push High so I doubted he'd want to take time off of work and the Pack to go to high school with me. Not to mention, he clearly was remembered by some of the locals. Tara's older sister Angela, for example, would be one of the first people to call Jacob an impersonator if he had gone to Forks High. Angela had been close friends with my mother while they both attended FHS five years ago and knew all about her friendship with my Jacob.

"I'll take that as a no." My human friend Tara Weber said, rolling her eyes at my inability to focus on our conversation once I saw that my Jacob was waiting.

"Um, what?" I asked, my cheeks heating up as Tara grinned at me. Ever since I told her about my crush on Jacob, she never let .

"I asked if you wanted to come over to my house before we went shopping tonight for prom dresses?" Tara asked. "You do remember that we need to get dresses, right? We've been planning this trip for weeks, Rennie."

"Oh, was that today?" I asked, trying not to space out anymore so she wouldn't have anything else to tease me about.

My crush on Jake was getting ridiculous. I thought that my embarrassment would subside and I'd be able to function like a normal teenager once I met other boys, but that sadly was not the case. Even Nahuel, as great as he was and had so many things in common with me, could only ever be in the friendzone when it came to me. I just didn't see anyone the way that I saw Jake.

"Well, I'll be at your house at five-thirty, Rennie." Tara had a smirk on her lips as she took in my pleading expression. "Tell your boy hi for me. And you'd better not ditch out on tonight!"

"I won't, I promise." I laughed just as Nahuel walked up. "Hey, Nate."

Nahuel scowled. I knew he hated the human version of his name. While we were at school, it was easier to be Nate and Rennie than Nahuel and Renesmee. The simple humans had so much trouble on the first few days of class that even Nahuel gave up on his protests.

Over the years, I had grown tired of being called Nessie so my Jacob had once again found a nickname for me so he wouldn't have to call me Renesmee all the time. Especially with starting high school. Mom thought that the kids would tease me with a "Loch Ness Monster" name. Jacob had a solution to that as soon as I hinted that I didn't want to be called Nessie any longer. He had been calling me Rennie for a year now and the rest of the family was slowly starting to pick up on it as well. My friends at school thought it was short and cute, just like me. What can I say? Jake had a knack for coming up with nicknames that I just absolutely adored.

"I hate humans, young Renesmee." Nahuel said dramatically. He grabbed my elbow and lead me towards the edge of the parking lot where Jake was waiting with the Rabbit.

"I told you not to call me that." I sighed in frustration. He and my mother were the only ones who were still holding out on my real name.

"My apologies, Rennie." Nahuel said, though it was half-hearted. He had something on his mind.

"So, what's wrong with humans today?" I asked, trying to rile Nahuel up. He was usually up for a good human-rant, as ironic as it was that only humans could rant with that much passion.

Though he was adjusting to human life, he could always find something to complain about them: they were too slow or they spent most of their time eating or they talked too loudly or they were so messy. It amused me to no end since those were some of my favorite things about humans. Vampires were so..._perfect._ Since Nahuel and I were both, we were "perfectly imperfect" as my father liked to remind me whenever I complained about not being one or the other.

"They find ridiculous excuses to embarrass one another and it does not even have a logical advantage to it." Nahuel complained, just like I knew he would. He always took the bait. Nahuel didn't understand human gossip, but he sure was good at it.

"How so?" I asked, trying to keep my eyes on his as we talked and not look ahead to Jake. I could be a good friend to someone other than Jake.

"This 'prom' thing, for starters." Nahuel was starting to get irritated by a memory that I wasn't privy to. "The entire system of a guy asking a girl is sexist and unfair. You are a woman," he didn't even notice when I blushed at the comment, "do you not find it frustrating that your fate is stuck in the hands of teenage human boys? They do not even have the courtesy to act like it is a delicate process. This animals actually had the _nerve_ to turn it into a game. Like whoever got the warmest bodied date was the victor."

"Hottest." I corrected. "Whoever had the _hottest_ date."

"See? Even you understand this barbaric ritual." Nahuel hissed. "That is probably why they find you 'smokin'."

"Who said that?" I asked, repulsed (and a little flattered) by the compliment.

"Pretty much all of the boys in the locker room." Nahuel shrugged. "They said that you would be the top prize for a prom date."

I snorted. "Good luck to them. Because I plan on going to this one by myself."

"Then I am confused." Nahuel said slowly, clearly thinking about something. "How can you be 'hot' and not want one of them for a companion? Is that not a human tradition? I thought only Janet Margret was going to go alone?"

"Who said that?" This time, my words were already angry at whoever said that. Though Janet wasn't the prettiest wallflower, she was a sweetheart and probably the kindest person that I had met at Forks High. Sometimes, when she wasn't reading in the library, she sat at lunch with me, Tara, and our crew because I would kick anyone off the table that would tease her in front of me.

"Phillip Diaz?" Nahuel prompted with a shrug, naming the quarterback with a crush on me. "I do not recognize the humans' voices as well when there are lockers between us. My apologies. If it is that important to you, I can find out...?"

"No, no. There's no reason to do that. I was just curious." I protested quickly, knowing that I had to stop him before he would actually go do it. "It is rude to say something like that, though. Janet has more heart than those guys have brains. It's not fair that she won't get asked to the dance just because of her looks."

Nahuel smirked at me. "Oh, I made sure that would not happen."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"I partook in a human activity!" That was exactly how Nahuel always explained any action he took at school. On the first day, I had to tell him that eating lunch in the cafeteria was not something to necessarily celebrate while we were still at school. "I do not understand it, Rennie. How can just a few words effect a person so much? The girl looked like she was going to cry with relief."

"Wait, did you ask Janet to the dance?" I asked, pleased with my hybrid friend for doing a good dead like that.

"Of course I did." Nahuel shrugged again. "I do not care about the looks of a human because after a hundred years of living only with my aunt in the jungle, I am just happy to be able to interact with them at all. I did think that you and the Cullens would be proud of me, though." And suddenly, he was the shy teenager that had come to us a year ago again, always trying to win our approval.

We reached the truck and Jake automatically opened his arms for a hug from me.

"How's my little midget today?" Jake teased me, ruffling my hair.

"I'm not that much shorter than you are, Jake." I protested, even though we both knew it was a lie. I was fifteen physically but I was still growing. At 5'5'' I was of average height with my classmates. Tara was taller than I was, but Janet was shorter than I was. I fit right in around the humans. Around Jacob? Not so much. He stood at 6'7'', a good foot taller than I was.

"How was your day, Rennie?" Jake asked again as he helped me get into the truck. I crawled through the driver side so that I could squeeze in the middle between my boys.

"It was interesting." I said, like I always did. "Tara says hello, by the way."

"That girl has yet to actually talk to me in person." Jacob mused and for a second I was defensive. Did he want her to talk to him? I mean, by human standards, Tara was gorgeous. Unlike her older sister, Tara was tall, blonde, and perky. Jake couldn't like her, could he? But he was a werewolf and had once had a crush on my human mother. Maybe human girls were his thing, since he sure as heck hadn't ever tried anything with me.

"Oh?" I asked, trying to control my jealousy. "You can talk to her tonight when she comes to pick me up for dress shopping."

"What do you need a dress for?" Jake asked, cranking the Rabbit up and throwing it into drive.

"For prom next week, of course." I said, rolling my eyes. "I'm sure that Alice has mentioned it to you. It's all she'll talk to me about anymore." I grumbled.

"You're going with her, right, Nate?" Jacob asked Nahuel. The two of them had this weird friendship. I thought that they would hate each other when they first met, but I think Jake actually trusted Nahuel around me. I think Jake just had a fondness for half-vampires.

"I asked Janet." Nahuel looked confused. "Should I have won the contest instead?"

"What?" Jake asked but I tried to get Nahuel to stop talking.

"The boys at school think that Rennie is 'hot.'" Nahuel said casually. "I thought it best to accompany the least likely girl instead of the most popular one. Did I choose incorrectly?"

Jake said nothing, just gripped the steering wheel tighter.

"No, I'm going to be fine." I assured both Nahuel and Jacob. "I don't want to go with any of the boys at school and I'll tell them that when they ask."

"But the human experience...?" Nahuel asked. This was hard for him to understand. Mainly because he didn't know that I didn't like any of the boys at school but liked the man to the left of me. I was being human, just not in the way that Nahuel thought we all had to.

"I'm still going to prom." I assured him. "I just am going stag since none of the boys at school appeal to me."

It was subtle, but Jake's mood improved for the rest of the ride home. When Nahuel went inside to tell Esme how school had gone, I sat where I was. I couldn't help but feel disappointed that Jake hadn't volunteered to take me to my prom. He took my mother to one of hers.

"You coming, Rennie?" Jake asked, one side of his body already out of the truck.

"I think I'll be in in a minute." I said, trying not to let him see that I was sulking.

"What's wrong?" My best friend was suddenly on high alert, stepping back into the truck but keeping the door half open.

"Nothing." I lied unconvincingly. Jacob shut the door and suddenly it was like it was just the two of us in the world. In reality, Esme and Nahuel were a few hundred feet away. The rest of the family was hunting or, in Carlisle's case, working the night shift at the hospital so they weren't here to disturb us.

"Rennie, tell me what's wrong?" It was more like a question or a plea than a demand. It was an option if I wanted to tell him what was bothering me or not.

When I didn't respond, Jake sat back in his seat. We sat in silence for nearly forty minutes before I heard his stomach rumble.

"We should get inside." I said half-heartedly. "You're hungry."

"I'm not leaving this truck until you tell me what's going on in that pretty little head of yours." I couldn't tell if he was being serious or joking, but I lost it. All of my emotions towards him for the past year and a half explode out of me.

"So you do think that I'm pretty? Really, Jake? Could have fooled me!" I hissed.

"Rennie, what has gotten into you? Of course I think you're pretty. You're too special not to be." My Jacob asked, one of his big hands moving to cup my chin as I tried to hide my face from him. "Wait, are you crying?"

"I might be a vampire freak, but I _can_ cry, Jake. I'm human enough for _that_." I didn't know what had gotten into me. I think his rejection was more than I could bare. He had been just friends with my mother and yet he had taken her to her dance. I thought that Jake and I were much closer of friends than they had been but he didn't even see it as an option. Because I was a freak and couldn't be loved the same way.

"Please don't cry, sweetie." His voice sounded almost as broken as mine was. "Whatever is bothering you, we can fix it. Is this about the dance?"

"This is about me!" I hissed again. "About my stupid human emotions that I can't get under control."

"Please, Rennie, tell me exactly what's bothering you so I can help." His dark eyes were pleading.

I scoffed. "You're the problem!" I yelled before I realized what I was saying, my cheeks bright red as my tears froze on my cheeks. "I mean, um, nothing."

Then like a light bulb going off, Jake understood what was bothering me. "You have...feelings for me?"

"Oh, shut up. Like you didn't already know." I hissed at him, finding my anger again. "Everyone knows, Jake. You don't have to pretend for me."

"Rennie, I can tell you that I honestly had no idea." His face looked so innocent that I had to believe him. "How long has this been going on?"

"A year and a half." I admitted, wishing that I could disappear from his shocked gaze.

"Of course I'm flattered..." The palm that was still holding my chin burned just like his rejection did. I swatted it away and moved as far away from him as I could while still staying in the truck. "Rennie, please don't overreact."

"How can I not overreact? The guy that I'm in love with thinks of me as a child!" I threw out the real reason that he was too afraid to actually admit. "I'm five years old and you can't handle that."

Jake tried to avoid the insinuation. "I thought that you wanted everyone to accept you as your physical age of fifteen?"

"Fine. I'm fifteen." I hissed. "You still hate that I'm a sophomore in high school, don't you? You're twenty-two and I'm fifteen. But I won't be this young forever. My heart is already as old as it's going to get!"

"Rennie, it's not your age." My heart was shattering with each word.

"It's not my age?" I asked, feeling my heart land in my stomach. My age I could handle since I was aging everyday and would be physically matured in two short years. I could wait for Jake if the age thing freaked him out. But he didn't even reciprocate my feelings in the slightest.

"I just don't feel like that towards you yet, Rennie." I could tell that it broke his heart to say that. Yeah, tough. It broke my heart to hear it. "I wish that I could tell you that I felt it, god, you have no idea how easy that would be. I'm so sorry. I wish that I did, but I just don't love you like you want me to."

"Is it because of what I am?" I asked, my voice tiny. "You hate that I'm half-vampire? That I'm a monster? That I'm not fully human?"

"NO!" Jacob protested so forcefully that I was afraid Nahuel and Esme would hear him and come looking for us. "I wouldn't change a thing about you. I love that you're exactly who you are."

"You just don't love me." I said, feeling a second batch of tears coming on.

"I think that I will one day, isn't that enough?" Jake asked, trying to pacify me. He had never said that, though, so I was too stunned to actually cry anymore.

"What do you mean, one day you'll love me?" I tried to sound stern, but the hope was all that my own ears could pick up so that's probably all he heard either. "Is this because you're my protector?"

Jacob kept his word. Since I tried to ask him about the protectors, Jake had taken me hunting an extra day a week in return for my silence on the matter. But I was sick of not knowing. I was getting used to the bland taste of human food; I could live with only two hunts a week again if it meant that I got to finally know the answer to the question that had been plaguing me for the past two years.

"I think it's time that I told you about imprinting." Jacob took a slow breath.

"Edward is going to kill me." He muttered under his breath before he took my hands in his. I tried my very hardest not to snap my hands back in my lap because I was still angry at him.

"Do you remember when we went swimming with Claire and Quil? You were three and I promised to take you hunting every week if you never brought it up again." When I nodded, he continued. "I promised you that I would tell you about the wolf bond when you were older...and, like it or not, you are clearly old enough now."

Jake stared at me with his giant eyes. All of his features were huge, but his eyes were the largest when he was staring at me. "You have to know that I only kept this secret from you because I felt like I was protecting your childhood. I was letting you be free to make your own decisions."

"Jake, what are you getting at?" I asked, unable to hold my question even though I just wanted him to continue.

"That _protector magic_," my Jacob smiled as he used the words that I had used so long ago, "is strong for a wolf. I want to keep you safe from the world but even though it pains me to let you live in it, I wanted you to have a normal human childhood without any restrictions or obligations that I know you would eventually feel...I just didn't expect the feelings to occur on their own. Or before mine. I can't be sure since I'm the first one to go through it like this, but I thought that my feelings would change the instant that yours did. That I would be unable to refuse such a pull from my imprint...but you've been in love with me for a year and a half."

"Imprint?" I asked, my head swimming in the thought that Jacob was supposed to be in love with me because of the protector magic but he wasn't. I managed to screw up something as set-in-stone as a protector bond. I had seen the other wolf girls and knew how it was supposed to happen.

"A wolf imprints the second that he looks into his soul mate's eyes for the first time after phasing." Jacob admitted, waiting for me to freak out or something. "It's a lifelong commitment to that person no matter what they decide to do with their lives. There is nothing that a wolf wouldn't do for his imprint. He, or she since we're not sure if Leah can or can't imprint, will be a brother, a friend, a lover, or whatever the imprint needs him to be. He changes when his imprint needs him to change. When she really truly wants the relationship to change...that's why I'm so confused that you're ready and I'm not. I love you, Rennie, but I just don't love you like you think you love me."

My mouth was hung open from the 'soul mate' part still.

"When did you imprint on me?" I asked, knowing that I would have felt the change. But I knew the answer. I had felt this way towards my Jacob my entire life. From the moment that I first laid eyes on him, I knew that he was mine and that I was his. I felt the pull every moment of my life, whether or not he was in the room with me or not. Even when I was mad at him, I still loved him. From the very first time I ever saw Jake, I knew that he was meant to be in my life and I in his. "I was a baby, wasn't I...?"

"Please don't freak out on me again." Jacob closed his eyes, looking like he might be the one to cry. "I've always imagined that if I didn't do this speech at just the right time that I would screw it up and you would freak out. I wanted you to know from the very beginning, that's why I gave you a promise bracelet as a toddler, but your parents forced me to wait until you were older...well, I was supposed to wait until you were fully matured but you seem to need to know how our future could play out right now."

"_Could_ play out?" I could handle the weirdness of him loving me when I was a baby, but I couldn't understand how this was not a sure thing. "I thought you said that I was your soul mate?"

"You are, sweetie. But you have a choice in the matter." Jake admitted, looking like he really was about to cry. "You will always have a choice, Rennie. I can never make you stay with me."

"You're not making me stay with you, Jake. You're my best friend and I...I love you." I admitted as bravely as I could. Because the words that we had said to each other a million times over the past five years suddenly meant something much deeper for me. "I want you in my life for the_ rest_ of my life. No matter if you love me like I do or not."

"Of course I want you in my life!" My Jacob gripped my hands tighter. "I just wish that I felt the same way about you...maybe in time I'll be like the rest of the imprinted wolves, but right now I'm like Quil still."

"I will wait for you to love me, then." I said, a smile on my lips even though this wasn't exactly good news. But it gave me hope.

"You don't have to. I would understand if the crush went away and you wanted to like someone else. This bond isn't forcing you to do anything." Jacob tried to convince me of my hypothetical options. He didn't understand that I didn't have a choice. Not really. I felt the bond, too. Didn't he know that? It hurt to be away from him for the eight hours that I was at school or whenever I had to go to bed and he had to run patrols. Any second that I was away from him physically hurt me. I would do anything for him. My life didn't exist without him in it.

"This isn't some crush, Jake." I tried not to get angry again when he was so heartbroken about his confession. "I love you with all of my soul and I could never fall out of love with you. If you're not ready to be with me, fine. But you will be with me someday, right?"

"As long as you want me to be, I will." Jake said, a small grin on his lips at my confidence.

"What do you want, Jake?" I asked. "From the way that this imprint thing sounds, you don't really have much of a choice."

"You are my soul mate, Rennie." Jacob said with conviction. "I will never be with anyone besides you, even if we do not end up together. I just want your happiness. Anything you want, I'll gladly do or give you as long as it makes you happy."

"So you have to do whatever I say?" I asked curiously, not because I wanted to abuse the 'power' that came with being an imprint.

"Within reason." My Jacob clarified, an unconscious scrunch in his brow.

"Within reason?" I questioned, unable to think of a single thing that Jake hadn't provided for me over the years if I wanted it; most of the time he even knew what I wanted before I was conscious of it.

"Yeah, say you want to jump off a bridge for non-recreational purposes...well, I wouldn't be allowed to let that happen no matter how much you wanted to."

"Jake, I would never ask that." I swore, cringing at the thought of suicide because it meant that I would be out of the world that my Jacob lived in.

"I'm glad to hear it." There was a relieved sigh from his beautiful mouth.

"There is something that I want from you, though." I tried to calm my nerves as I tried to press for the one thing that I wanted more than anything.

"Anything, Rennie." Jacob seemed eager to please me now that I had accepted the secret he had been keeping from me for my entire life. I could tell that it had weighed on him much more than he let on.

"I want you to kiss me." The look on Jake's face was priceless.

"K-kiss you?" Jake asked, looking shocked at my request. "But I don't love you like that, Rennie. I don't want it to give you more hope than it should...it'll mean something different to you."

I bite my bottom lip to keep from crying. "Do I really repulse you that badly?"

Instead of answering, Jacob let out a small sigh and scooted the half seat closer to me. I held my breath as he placed one giant warm hand on my cheek. I let my eyes close at his touch. His lips touched mine so softly that I had to open my eyes back up again to make sure that was what was happening. When it was confirmed, I took a second to revile in it before pressing my luck. I moved my lips against his with the tiniest bit of force like I had seen in all of those cheesy romantic movies that Aunt Rose loved so much.

It was perfect. The very perfect first kiss with the man that I would love for the rest of my life. My Jacob was actually kissing me.

Tara's headlights flashed behind us and Jake pulled away from me as if I had shocked him with a volt of electricity. I know that I could feel the electricity still on my lips.

"We can't do that again, Rennie." Jake said, his eyes as stunned as his voice sounded.

I nodded, though I wouldn't ever give up. I would wait as long as it took for my Jacob to come around.

"I'd better go, Jake. I didn't realize that it was getting so late." I looked at the clock on the dashboard. Was it already five-twenty? I couldn't believe that we had been sitting in the truck for two hours. "I have to go with Tara to pick out a prom dress."

"Your prom, right." Jake seemed nervous again, like I might demand that he accompany me.

"Oh, calm down, Jake." I rolled my eyes. "As much as I'd like to have you take me to my prom, I'm not going to use my newly found imprint powers to make you go. I know that you're too old to take me. Besides, I think you're right about this crush." A lie. "I think that it might be better if I got some more human experiences." Another lie. "Nahuel is taking Janet. Maybe I can convince someone to take me."

And with that, I jumped out of the truck and went to sit in the car with Tara.

_Going to the mall with Tara. Tell Esme I'm sorry I didn't come inside. I'll be back by ten. _I sent a quick text to Nahuel since I couldn't bare to talk to Jake again.

"Ready to go?" Tara asked, clearly wanting me to talk about what she just witnessed in Jacob's truck.

"All set." I replied, buckling my seat belt.

"Oh, you'd better spill now or I'm not going to take you anywhere." My best human friend threatened, her hand stalled on the keys. "Rennie, I swear."

"Wait until we're on the road." I promised, watching Jake's Rabbit sit in the driveway and knowing that his super-hearing would pick up anything we said. Once we were on our way to the mall, I spilled everything (minus the imprint and mythological creatures things) to Tara. Once I finished gushing, Tara stared at me.

"You know what would really get him to realize he loves you?" Tara's eyes were sparkling with mischief. "A hot dress and an even hotter date."

Like promised, Tara found me just the dress that would capture any guy's attention: red, strapless, two inches above the knee, and clinging to every curve that my mother gave me. The dress she picked out was a little more tame since her family was so conservative: blue, short-sleeved, exactly at the knee, and flowing freely with a modest bust line.

Tara did keep her promise of finding me a hot date, though. John Calzone was tall, blonde, and had dimples to boot. He wasn't as handsome as Phillip Diaz but he was much nicer of a person. He was the fourth guy to ask me to the dance, though there were three more after I said yes to John.

He did the trick, though. Two weeks later when Prom rolled around, I got to have a human experience and I got to pretend that it was making Jake jealous.

The whole family wanted to take pictures of Nahuel and me with our dates but since my parents and aunts and uncles were supposed to have moved off and gone to college, only Esme and Carlisle were present when John came to pick me up and Janet was dropped off. They took more than enough pictures to satisfy the rest of the family. I even got one alone with Nahuel. I wished that Jake had stuck around but ever since our kiss, he had only stopped by for a few hours a day instead of all day long. I knew he would be there tonight to hear the story of how my prom went, just like the rest of my family.

So I made sure that it was a story worth telling. I danced with Tara and Janet and a few of my other female friends. I got a dance with Nahuel in while Janet was getting punch. And I spent the rest of the time with John. He held me close and told me I was pretty and even kissed me goodnight when he dropped me off at the Cullen Mansion. It sounded like a perfect night...but I didn't have my Jacob by my side so it couldn't be.

I didn't add that last part in when I told my family about my fun night. Most of them had seen the kiss from John and were gushing about my first kiss. I gave Jake a grin when they mentioned this and he just shook his head at me. He didn't want everyone to know. Fine. I wouldn't tell anyone. But that sure wasn't going to stop me from thinking it.

_Jacob was my first kiss, Daddy. Not John._ I thought as loudly as I could.

When my father didn't blow a gasket, I stared at my mother. She smirked at my expression. "Don't worry, Renesmee, I'm shielding you now that you are in the dating world." For the youngest vampire in our group, she sure was not hip with the terms. I was thankful nonetheless. I hadn't had my mind to myself in five years. "You don't have to worry about your father in your head anymore."

"I appreciate it, Momma." I said quietly, my eyes still on Jacob.

I turned back to the main conversation and then was upset that I had. Nahuel was going on about a story involving me and John at the dance since he had been our chaperon of sorts during the dance. Jake stared at me when Nahuel mentioned John grabbing my butt during the middle of a fast song, anger clear on his face.

"He did _what_?" Jake wasn't the only one who was mad, but he sure was the first one to voice his disapproval.

I rolled my eyes. "It was nothing. Lots of guys grab girls' butts. I was just doing what the rest of the teenage human population does at a dance." Though it _had_ made me uncomfortable.

"Rennie, can I talk to you outside for a moment?" Jacob asked, leaving not much room for debate. I followed him because I would follow him anywhere and let Nahuel tell the rest of the family about the dance.

"You will never let him touch you like that again." Jake threatened me as soon as we were out of earshot of the mansion.

"And who's going to stop me?" I asked angrily. "Because you sure didn't seem to care about who I went to the dance with. You wanted me to be human. Tell me, Jake. Who. Is. Going. To. Stop. Me?"

"I am." And suddenly his lips were on mine for the second time in my life. Jealousy really brought out the passion in my Jacob. I kissed him back with a passion of my own, letting my hands reach up and grasp his hair.

"God, Rennie, that dress." Another kiss. "You're going to kill me with those legs of yours." Another firey kiss. "You are mine, Rennie. Not his." A kiss that melted my insides. "I love you, Rennie. I'm so sorry that it took so long to realize that."

Now tonight was truly perfect.


	5. Year Seven

**(Rennie: physical age twenty/fully grown; 7)**

Jacob and I had been dating for two years and each day was better than the last. I never wanted to leave his side and school became a chore for me because it meant that for eight hours a day, I couldn't hold Jacob's hand. Tara and Nahuel tried to keep me preoccupied, more for their sake I think than mine, but it was difficult to not look forward to anything but the end of the school day when Jacob would come pick me up and take me to the Rez. He stopped picking up Nahuel with me and my hybrid friend had to finally learn to drive. The Cullens gave him a consolation Volvo, one of Dad's old ones, for having to put up with me at school now that I knew I was Jacob's imprint and he was my boyfriend.

I couldn't help it, though. I wanted to spend every second with Jacob. When we weren't making out or hunting (my two favorite things, in that order), we were talking about everything from Pack business to Alice's crazy predictions that didn't end up coming true.

He even took me to my junior and senior proms, despite the fact that he was clearly older looking than the rest of us. My friend Tara Weber was the only one who didn't think it was weird, but that was because she thought he was hot enough to get away with it. Literally, she told me that.

Jake was teaching me Quiluite so that I could feel closer to his culture. Secretly, I wanted to learn it so that I could hopefully be accepted with the tribe when I became his wife but I didn't tell Jacob that. He always got nervous when I talked about us getting married. I had a feeling it had to do with some promise made to my parents when I was a baby. But I wasn't letting them control my life with Jacob anymore. I knew what I wanted and I wasn't too young to make that kind of decision. I might technically be seven, but I was an adult in the eyes of the law since my fake birth certificate for enrolling at Forks High stated that my birthday made me eighteen last September, though I looked closer to twenty.

It was January of my senior year when I decided that I wasn't going to take "no" for an answer anymore. I didn't want to "talk about it later" or "wait until I was older" or any of the other excuses that Jacob always came up with when I brought it up. It was now or never, and it was time that I made my imprinter know that.

"So, I'm thinking about a spring wedding." I said out-of-the-blue on one of our date nights, catching Jake mid-bite. He chewed what was already in his mouth and put the rest of the spaghetti-clad fork down on his plate. "That way, after graduation, I can just move in with you and save us all the trouble of being away from each other any longer."

"Nessie, I don't want you to want to get married out of obligation or convenience. We'll talk about this later." Jake had his tough-Alpha face on. Well, tough. I could put on my adorable-imprint face. I didn't like playing that card because I never wanted Jacob to feel like I was forcing him to do anything, but I wanted to at least talk about this.

"We'll talk about this now." I said just as seriously. "I'm serious, Jake. I don't see why we can never talk about this. I want to marry you and I _thought_ that you wanted to marry me, too."

"You know that I do." Jacob looked almost hurt at my accusation.

"Do I?" I asked. "How would I know when you won't ever let us talk about it. Is it because of my age? Is that why you won't even let us have this conversation?"

"You _are_ young, Nessie." Jacob had recently started calling me my childhood nickname again and, even though I told everyone else that they had to call me Rennie, I loved that he had switched back since admitting the imprint. He was the one who had given me that nickname in the beginning and now it was his again to call me by.

"I swear to god, Jake, if you call me seven I will never talk to you again." I threatened, only half serious.

"I know that you aren't your technical age. But eighteen is young, too, Nessie." Jacob tried to get me to understand. "Most marriages right out of high school fail within five years."

"Is that what you're worried about?" I asked, trying not to giggle at him. "Baby, you_ imprinted_ on me. We have a bond that no one can break. Do you really think that we fall in the same category as human teenagers?"

The sad look in his deep brown eyes was enough of an answer.

"Jacob Ephraim Black, I love you and I will love you five years from now and five hundred years from now." I smiled at him, reaching across the table to hold his hand. "If it means that much to you, I will wait to marry you until you're sure about our statistical chances. But I have no doubt about us, Jake. We're meant to be and no amount of time will change that."

"Excuse me for a minute?" Jacob asked me, moving his hand out from under mine. "I need to get some air."

I nodded. While Jacob was gone, I thought about what I had said and realized that it was true. I really would wait for Jacob to be ready to marry me. As much as I wanted to show the world that I belonged to him and he to me, we already had a claim to each other that no one could deny. Who needed a piece of paper to tell us what we already knew? I suddenly felt silly for bringing it up so adamantly.

When he came back, I was ready to tell him that, but instead of taking his seat across from me again, Jacob got down on one knee next to my chair and pulled out a black velvet box, popping the top open to reveal the perfect engagement ring: a beautiful yet not gawdy diamond on a gold band.

"Renesmee, will you make me the happiest man in the world by becoming my wife?" Jacob asked me, his giant eyes showing the same vulnerability as earlier.

"Are you sure about this?" I asked, placing my hand on his cheek. "I can wait as long as you want."

"I want to make you my wife, Ness. It's time that I stopped letting my stupid fears control me." Jacob said, my favorite grin of his on his face. "Now, I'd like an answer before my knee gives out."

"Okay, I won't interrupt this time." I promised, unable to contain my own grin.

"Renesmee Carlie Cullen, will you make me the happiest man in the world by becoming my wife?" Jacob asked and I squealed "yes!" before throwing my arms around his neck and kissing any part of his skin that was available to me. Jake laughed as I tickled his neck and pulled me away for a second. It took me a second to realize that we were laying on the floor of the restaurant and that everyone in the room was staring at us. Jake slipped the diamond ring on my left hand and people clapped for us.

"She said yes!" Jacob boasted, getting the crowd going again and I just blushed.

We got a free dessert, complimentary of the restaurant, but even chocolate cake didn't make me happy like it usually did. I was too focused on Jacob's reaction. I was half afraid that he would start to regret it and take back the proposal. We were in his Rabbit on the way home before either of us brought it up again.

"Why do you look so sad, Nessie?" Jacob looked at me with those giant eyes that melted my soul. "Are you regretting your answer?"

"I'm just afraid that you're regretting your question." I admitted, averting my gaze so that I wouldn't have to look at his sad face any longer.

"Nessie, look at me." Jacob said softly and I instantly obeyed. I couldn't deny him anything. "You know that I love you and that I want to marry you, sweetie. If you are having any doubts, let me know now and we can wait. I only want to make you happy."

"But what about you, Jake?" I asked, reaching my hand over to take Jake's in mine while he kept driving. "Who is going to make you happy?"

It took me a couple seconds to realize that the Rabbit had come to a stop on the side of the road, just barely out of the way of the main road.

"Nessie, Nessie, Nessie." And suddenly his dark eyes were on mine again, no longer distracted by the road ahead of us. "_You_ make me happy. Just by being in my life, you have already made me the happiest man alive. Of course I want to marry you. I just figured it would be later down the road. But if it means that much to you, I would marry you right this second. Because I love you and that doesn't change anything; I already belong to you fully."

By time we got back home, it was pretty dark. Not that that stopped my vampire family. Rosalie and Emmett were...occupied, but the rest of the Cullen clan was watching Alice and my father play chess. I was the only one who could play with Daddy without worrying about him cheating (Momma had gotten really good at shielding my thoughts from him, though it was harder for her to shield other people's for extended periods of time), but Alice was still a fair opponent.

They all looked up when we entered the room and I couldn't help but flash my ring-clad hand out for them all to admire.

"I know that I promised to wait until I had asked for your blessing..." Jacob began, holding up his hands in defense.

"I think that we should speak alone." Edward said calmly and the rest of the Cullens scurried off into their respective bedrooms. I wondered why we did not just go to the cottage, but I didn't press him. We sat down on the couch, Jacob and I, while my parents took up seats across from us.

Instead of berating me like I thought he would, the first words that escaped his lips were not what I expected.

"Don't you want to go to college before you settle down?" Daddy asked, looking at me and not my Jacob.

"That's your dream, Daddy. Not mine." I said. "I just want to marry Jacob. I can go to school if I change my mind. I have forever to live and be educated. But right now the Pack needs Jacob and I need to support him."

"I'm afraid that I can't let you do that."

My mouth wasn't the only one that slacked. Even my father looked puzzled, though a little pleased by my mother's words.

"Are you saying that I can't marry Jacob?" I asked, almost defiantly.

"Of course not, honey." Bella said, her light golden eyes shining off of the lamp light. "I agree that marrying Jacob is an important step in your life. I just don't want you to miss out on life."

"Like you did." I spat, and even though it didn't offend my mother, my father took that blow hard.

"I wish that I hadn't let Bella talk me into marrying her so quickly." Edward said, looking at Jake instead of me. "These Swan women want what they want when they want it. But I know from personal experience that there are things that they will regret missing out on at the proper time."

"Do I regret marrying your father and having you?" Momma asked rhetorically, her cold hand reaching out to clutch mine. "Of course not. But I think that if I had experienced more of my own life before that then I wouldn't always wonder about how my life could have been."

"I don't care if I wonder!" I exclaimed. "I only want to marry Jacob!"

My imprinter kissed the side of my head in agreement. Or so I thought. Then he said the words that betrayed me. "I would care if you wondered."

"Whaa-?" I asked, turning all of my attention to my wolf. "I thought we agreed that this was what we both wanted?"

"It is, it is." Jake said, his big brown eyes so full of emotions. "But I don't want to look back twenty years from now and you always wish that you had been as human as possible while you could still blend in. What about your friends? Don't you want to enjoy a few more years with Tara and Alexis and Janet? I know how much your human friends mean to you, Nessie. I can't take you away from them just yet."

"But you're not taking me away!" I wanted to shoot all of them in the head so they would understand just how frustrated I was right now. "I want to marry you now. I don't want to go to college. I'd rather spend all of my time with you and start on our family."

"We have plenty of time for you to be my wife," even though he was telling me no, whenever he said that word a grin split across his face, "but I want you to experience human things, too. I never want to feel like you traded it all for me."

"Oh, baby." I said, putting my hand on his cheek. That was what decided my answer for me. My big, strong, vulnerable imprinter was scared that I didn't love him enough to give up my human life...and he loved me enough not to let me.

When I felt the urge to cry leave me, I looked back at my parents. "I'll graduate early and show you how little college experience meant to me. I still only want to marry Jacob, but if it's human experiences you want me to have, then I'll have them. Jacob is my fiance and I love him enough to do him this favor. But mark my words, if you try to throw some other crazy human excuse in my face again, you will not be invited to the wedding."

"Fair enough." My father had a crooked grin on his face that made him look as young as, well, he looked. It was strange that both of my parents looked younger than I did now.

"We only want what's best for you, honey!" My mother sure was a persistent one.

"The day that I graduate from college, I am becoming Jacob's wife." I swore both to them and to myself.

"Of course, honey." Momma was patronizing me again. I hated when she tried to treat me like my technical age. I was not seven, I was eighteen. "Now why don't we worry about graduating you from high school first, hmmm?"

As if that was the magic cue that everyone had been waiting for, suddenly the living room was crowded with my extended family. Embry and Jasper congratulated Jacob on our engagement while Carlisle and my parents talked about which schools to get me into. Alice couldn't decide about whether to focus on my high school graduation party or my engagement party or to start planning my wedding. Esme wrapped her loving arm around me and congratulated me while Rosalie only smiled, though I noticed that she didn't smile in Jacob's direction.

I knew that no matter what my family thought, I was going to marry Jacob even if it killed me.

For the next four months, I focused on my schoolwork and my human friends. In the back of my mind, I was hoping that Jacob would change his mind and agree to marry me right after high school graduation, but no dice.

Tara squealed when she found me in line. Though she was "W" for Weber and I was "C" for Cullen (like Nahuel was), since we were both in Top Ten percent, she got to stand with only one person (John Calzone my tall, blonde, dimpled prom date sophomore year that made Jake jealous enough to claim what was his-me) between us. It suited me just fine.

I would have been Valedictorian, since I have learned more in my five years of homeschooling than I have in the past three at Forks High, but I did not want to draw special attention to myself. Even without making perfect scores, I still managed to be Salutatorian (that's number two ranking). My parents were very proud of me, though I still don't think that my father understood why I didn't fight for the number one spot. I just didn't have it in me to care that much.

This was the human world; I figured it'd be better to let a human win. And I couldn't be happier for Janet Margret for beating me. The once loner girl deserved it. She had become a good friend to me over the years since Nahuel had unconsciously made her his girlfriend for the past three years.

I know that Janet had really fallen for my hybrid buddy, but though he had grown to like her as a person, I didn't see a spark between them. He was just enjoying a few human experiences. That was just as well since she would be headed off to some state school in California in the fall and Nahuel was going to Washington University with me...now that I was forced to go to college, I would have my friendly body guard following me. I wished that I could convince Jake to come with me, but he wanted me to do this on my own. Besides, my Jacob graduated from community college and had business with the Pack to deal with. He couldn't always come babysit me.

"Oh my gosh, Rennie. You_ have_ to introduce me to your friends..." Tara gushed, earning an eye roll from John who couldn't help but listen to our conversation.

I turned around, expecting Tara's gaze to be on the row of forever young-Cullens who had been attracting quite a lot of attention since they arrived, but was surprised to see that her eyes were on some of the Pack members were sitting on the other side of the gymnasium. I spotted first my Jacob, then Seth, Leah, Embry, and Quil with nine-year-old Claire.

"Oh, I didn't know that the Pa-um, boys would be coming." I covered up my slip quickly. It was so difficult remembering that I was around humans all the time who didn't know about all of the mythological people in my life, myself included.

I smiled towards the group of Pack-mates and earned a grin from Jake, a wave from Seth who couldn't keep his eyes off of the two of us, and Leah who was now scowling in our direction. I didn't understand that last gesture: Leah and I had been slowly becoming friends. I think it was hard for her to see her Alpha so attached to a half-vampire child but the more mature I got, the less creeped out she seemed. The look she was giving me now told me that our friendship was ruining her life.

"Well, I'm glad they came." Tara grinned, waving at the group when I did. Always the flirt. It amazed me that she and Angela were sisters since they were polar opposites; I spotted Angela with her parents a few rows ahead of my family. Bella and Edward had already said their hellos to their former classmate.

I knew that seeing her old friend made my mom uncomfortable since she hadn't aged a day in the past seven years but since seven years was a reasonable time, the Cullens were allowed this one last trip out into Forks society. After I graduated, my family would be relocating. The only reason we had even stayed this long in one area was because I was pretty much the only one out in public, other than Nahuel of course.

"Oh, I bet you are." I teased. "I'll make sure that I introduce you to Embry and Seth, then. They're always up for meeting new people." I didn't add that they were the only two that were available since Quil had imprinted and Jacob was mine.

"Which one is the one who won't stop waving at us?" Tara asked, a blush on her cheeks. The second she asked the question, Seth realized that he had still been waving and put his hand down sheepishly. I knew he had heard her since the room wasn't that big and a werewolf's hearing was really great.

"That's Seth Clearwater. I think you'll get along great." I said, noticing Seth's obvious attraction to my friend from thirty seats away.

"Rennie, I think that we're about to start." John spoke up, silently and patiently waiting for our conversation to be over. When he noticed that it wasn't going to end soon, he intervened.

"Thanks, John." I said, flashing him a smile and cringing internally when his face lit up. Crap. I still hadn't gotten used to my natural dazzling ability. Just a simple smile turned human boys into putty.

We took our places and before I even knew it, the ceremony was over and I was being congratulated by my friends and family. I was hugged and kissed and thrown up in the air by various Pack members. They weren't really affectionate towards Nahuel, though Jacob did lightly slap him in the arm. The Cullens showed Nahuel the same enthusiasm that they showed me. My mother would have been crying if she could produce tears (Esme brought an eye drop and was faking tears for the crowd towards her 'adopted children').

The only one that I didn't see was Leah, though I knew she had been there before the ceremony started. When I tried to ask Seth about it, he only wanted to have me introduce him to my "beautiful friend." I knew that she had caught his eye, that much was obvious from the way that he stared at Tara during the entire ceremony. I thought it was kinda cute.

I couldn't let it drop, though. If Leah hated me, I'd rather know about it than have everyone try to pretend that things were okay.

"Jake, I don't understand, why isn't Leah here?" I asked my wolf when it was his turn to congratulate me...after I got done showing him my own appreciation in the form of my kisses.

"Seth imprinted." Jacob replied slowly.

"Oh, wow! That's great news! On Tara, right?" When Jake nodded, I continued. "This is too great. My best friend and your best friend! Now I can have no secrets with Tara because Seth has to tell her everything, right? Oh, Jake, this is wonderful!" I paused, one thought still bothering me. "I don't understand why that would make Leah unhappy, though."

"She feels alone now. Embry and Leah are the only Pack members who haven't either found their imprint or stopped phasing." Jake said almost under his breath, like it was a secret from the rest of the Pack. "When Collin imprinted two years ago, we thought that that was it. It had to be, right? Imprinting was supposed to be rare, but me, Sam, Quil, Jared, Brady, Collin, and now Seth have all taken the plunge. Leah is freaking out a bit."

"I get that she doesn't want to be alone forever, but girls can imprint, right?" I still didn't understand.

"We didn't know that there were she-wolves until Leah phased." Jacob explained. "The Council don't know anything about this. They thought that imprinting was rare and look at that: seven wolves have imprinted."

"Exactly, they don't know anything." I said, not meaning to offend. "Who's to say that Leah won't imprint one day?"

"I think that's what scares her..." Jacob let out a long sigh. "That she and Embry are the only ones left who haven't imprinted and that either could at any moment."

And just like that, it hit me. "Embry."

I remembered a conversation that I had with Leah about a year ago; I was close to nineteen physically since my growth rate was slowing and was attempting to bond with Leah once again for Jacob's sake. Not that I didn't want to be Leah's friend, I did, but it meant so much to my Jacob for me to get along with his Beta. She was in the middle of a rant when I walked in.

_"Oh, hey, Rennie." Leah said when she spotted me. I could tell it was forced, though._

_"Are you okay, Leah?" I asked, not wanting to overstep since we weren't really friends yet._

_"Yeah, yeah, I'm just peachy." Leah tried not to sneer, but it was such a habit that she did anyways. _

_"I'm here if you ever wanna talk...you know, to a girl." I said, trying to be helpful. _

_I knew how hard it was to not have anyone to talk to. My family was completely biased and I was now too old to play with Claire since I grew at a much faster rate than she did. I had Nahuel and Tara, but one tried to understand me completely and the other didn't really know the real me. I couldn't complain, though. Leah literally had no one now that her cousin and former best friend Emily had married the former love of Leah's life. _

_"I can't talk to you." Leah snapped, but regretted it. "I'm sorry, I just can't let anyone know about this. The Pack would humiliate me if they found out." _

_"I won't tell Jacob." I promised, knowing that was exactly who she meant. _

_"It's not just him." Leah shook her head, but she seemed less nervous as before. _

_"No one will find out about whatever it is that has you so freaked out." I promised, looking her deep in the eyes. _

_"I swear if I find out you told any of them..." Leah began but I just shook my head, willing to agree to whatever crazy threat she could come up with. _

_"I think I'm in love." She stated at long last, a grimace on her face. _

_"That's so wonderful, Leah!" I beamed, only realizing once I've said it that she wasn't happy about it. "Wait, why aren't you happy about this? Most girls in love are over-the-moon." _

_"Most girls in love aren't controlled by the moon." Leah tried to joke. "Get it, she-wolf?" _

_"I get it. I just don't understand." I said, chewing on my bottom lip. It was a nervous habit that Jacob said was adorable. _

_"It is when he'll imprint." Leah said in barely a whisper. "Just like Sam did." _

_"Embry?" I asked, taking a shot in the dark. They were the only two older Pack members who weren't imprinted already or related to each other. _

_"Shhhh. Would you keep it down?" Leah said, placing her hand over my mouth. I think that was the first time she treated me like a human being instead of a half-vampire; usually she would only shake my hand or pat my shoulder if Jake was around. That simple gesture let me know that one day we could actually be real friends instead of fake ones. Maybe that day was today._

_"Leah, I swear, nothing bad is going to happen." I said, suddenly remembering something that I witnessed last week at a bonfire. "Embry cares too much about you for this not to be a serious thing if you'd let it happen. Take your chance with the man you love. Screw imprinting." _

_Leah gave me her signature smirk. "Original coming from an imprint." _

That conversation came to my mind now. Leah was afraid that Embry (or maybe even herself) would imprint soon. I know from Jake that Embry, after a year of hints, finally asked Leah out on their first date.

"Embry, exactly." Jacob said. "But don't let this spoil your big day. I'll go talk to Leah once she's cooled down if Embry doesn't beat me to it."

"Okay, Jake." I said. "I'll leave you to your Pack duties."


	6. Year Eight

**(Rennie: physical age twenty/fully grown; 8)**

"Say _what_ again? Rennie...did you really just say what I think you just said?" Tara looked at me with those giant eyes that made me regret everything that I had just admitted to her. Crap. I should have waited, I _knew_ that I should have waited. One summer as an imprint didn't mean that Tara would suddenly be okay with the entire mythological world. This was too much to handle. Of course it was! God, why did I do this again? Crap, crap, crap.

"Um, I'm a half vampire." I repeated, slowly, not quite as sure of myself as I had been a minute ago. "The other half is human, in case you were wondering..."

"You wait until the day we're about to move in a dorm together at Washington State to tell me this?" Tara looked angry. No, wait. It was more of a hurt angry than a scared one like I was afraid of. "I thought we were best friends, Rennie. How could you keep this from me?"

"You're not scared?" I asked, half relieved and half skeptic still. Maybe she was in shock.

"Why would I be scared?" Tara scoffed, her big blue eyes looking less judgmental than I thought they were; nope that was definitely anger and not fear in them. "Both of our boyfriends phase into giant wolves. Nothing surprises me at this point."

"I'm sorry, Tara. Really!" I threw my hands up. "I figured that Seth would have already told you...and besides, I didn't want to scare off the only real friend that I had."

"You could never scare me off, Ren." Tara sighed. "I just wish you had trusted me enough to tell me. We're going to college together, we've been friends since sophomore year, I'm an imprint just like you...I can handle any secret you have."

"I know that now." I admitted. "I'll let you ask me anything you want and I'll answer honestly. Promise."

"Half vampire, how did that work?" Tara asked curiously after a moment of thinking.

"I had a feeling that would be the first question." I laughed. "Well, my mother was human when my parents married. That was her condition. And then, well, on their honeymoon, she noticed that she had a different condition to worry about."

"I bet that scared the shit out of your parents." Tara had picked up a potty mouth over the summer since graduation when Seth imprinted on her and she started spending all of her time with the Pack boys. I was happy for my friend for accepting the whole imprinting/werewolf thing so quickly. But, then again, Tara had always been open minded. And she was really falling for Seth. I mean, really, who wouldn't have fallen for a sweetheart like Seth? If I didn't have Jacob, I could see how Seth would be the perfect companion.

"It scared a lot of people. Jake included." I admitted, not liking this part of my history but unable to deny its truth.

"Your Jake was around back then?" When I nodded, she whistled. "Daaaaang. How old_ is_ he?"

"How old is Seth?" I asked back, rolling my eyes.

"Touche." Tara grinned.

"Besides, my birth wasn't that long ago." I said, knowing that there were a lot more questions about to be headed my way with this new information dropped on Tara. "Jake was seventeen when he imprinted on me."

"Jacob is only two years older than Seth is. Rennie...how old are _you_?" Tara asked, sensing that this was the question I was trying to answer.

"I'll turn eight in September." I admitted, giving her time to let that sink in. Though Tara and I looked the same age, she was ten years older than I was. I was just a child. If I had been human I would have been getting ready for third grade, not heading off to college like I was now.

And then I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

After four and a half minutes of Tara's silence, I decided to try again.

"Please, Tara. I told you that you could ask me anything. Let me know what you're thinking about." I begged. "You said that I couldn't scare you."

"B-but you were fifteen when I met you." Tara stuttered. "I've seen you age, Rennie. I've gone to your b-birthday parties."

Though it wasn't a question, I answered it like one.

"I was born eight years ago. Conceived and born like a normal human baby, but then things changed." I explained, my words flowing one after another until I felt like they were blurring together. "I grow really quickly, or rather, I did grow quickly. I looked like a toddler only days after my birth and from then on it was pretty much the same. I stopped aging last year and I will look like this until I am dead, which hopefully will be never since Jacob can phase for as long as he wants to. I'm twenty years old, for all intensive purposes."

"You're only eight." Tara looked like she might be about to have a panic attack. "Jesus Christ, my best friend is eight years old!"

"I can't believe that this is the thing that's freaking you out." I couldn't help but laugh.

"I'm full of surprises." Tara let out a long breath. "What else would I freak out about? I _know_ you, Ren. You're the girl who is afraid to hit a turtle in the middle of the road. You're the girl who sat up all night with Claire when Quil was on patrol and she needed reassurance that he missed her as much as she missed him. You're the girl that, no matter how much we try to convince her, refuses to sneak out of the house without her parents' permission. Rennie, I know who you are. So you're an eight year old half-vampire? You're still my best friend. None of that has changed."

"I'm glad to hear it." I smiled at Tara. "You're still my best friend, too."

"Even though you are trying to leave me. It's very childish of you." Tara joked.

"Hey now," I replied, giving her a long look. "I'm only graduating early so that I can fulfill my parents' wish that I attend college before marrying Jacob. You would do the same if you couldn't be with Seth until after college."

"You're right." Tara sighed. "I just hate that you'll be taking summer classes and taking full course loads and extra night classes. I'll never get to see you! Hell, you've already comped out of more classes than I'm going to be taking this semester. It's a bit ridiculous."

"I can't help it that I want to get out of here as soon as I can. I comped out of enough classes that I'm technically already a sophomore." I tried not to brag, but it seemed to come out that way. "I just need to get back to my Jacob as soon as physically possible."

Tara giggled. "I understand. I'm just glad that I'm not in a rush to get married or else I'd be going crazy like you, kiddo."

"Again with the kid jokes?" I asked, but I didn't really have a problem with them. Tara and I had always teased each other. I was just sorry that I had given her new ammo.

"I can't help it that you're a child, Rennie." Tara's grin could be seen for miles. "Really, I blame your parents for having you right out of high school. Those teenage pregnancies."

"Oh, hush up." I slapped her lightly on the arm. "You're the super old one."

"Eighteen is not old, young lady!" Tara argued back, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

"You have no idea how lucky I feel right now," I was relieved that Tara hadn't taken offense to "having an old lady watching my back at college."

The next morning, the family came down to Washington State to help me move in my dorm. Tara's parents were there, too, but Angela wasn't since she was starting her final year of med school today. The Webers only took an hour to get Tara settled in before they whisked her away for a tour of the campus. My family had a harder time settling me in. Of course not. That's just not how the Cullens do things.

I was hoping that the Tara and I would be the first ones there since we got there at ten. But out of our dorm of six, there were already two of the girls moved in by time we got there in the morning. I could tell by the matching green comforters with H's sewn into the pillows that it was the twins that had arrived already, probably before eight this morning when we were first allowed to check in.

I was looking forward to meeting all of my roommates in person. Alice had found all of my future roommates on social media sites so I knew what each of them looked like. Along with Tara, my roommates included Haleigh and Hannah Hart, brown haired mousy girls that both wore glasses and were so hard to tell apart on Myspace that I wasn't quite sure I'd be able to tell them apart now if I met them; a spunky blonde with a nose ring that was no taller than 5' named Jessica Dandy that had the craziest Twitter; and a fun loving black haired girl who looked nearly Hispanic with that dark summer tan of hers named Ashley Appleton that we found on Facebook.

But, for right now, I had the entire dorm to myself. Rosalie was putting my bed set together while Daddy and Emmett set up all of my technology in the living room and the kitchen. I brought a big screen for the common room and also one for the room that Tara and I would be sharing. Not to mention a toaster, high tech coffee maker, and a mini fridge. I felt like it was too much to bring, but Alice assured me that my roommates wouldn't mind. Momma was taking this time to put away all of my clothes (and to sort through them while Alice wasn't here and get rid of those that were too inappropriate or flashy for class).

Right now, Carlisle and Esme were with Alice and Jasper at the apartment that the Cullens had set up for Nahuel and Seth to live at this semester. Since Seth needs to be close to Tara, he decided to go to school with us and build on his two year community college diploma. The boys were living off campus because Seth needs to be closer to the woods in case of an emergency phase and Nahuel needed access to small animals in case the smell of so much human blood started to get to him.

It was safer this way for everyone. Jake could get in contact with Seth if there was a problem and vice versa. Forks was only a five hour drive from WU, but that meant a two and a half hour run for the Pack or my family. Not that I thought there would be a problem like that, but the fact that I could call them and they would be there in close to two hours comforted me. As much as I wanted to be out on my own and experience human things (since they were making me anyways), I still felt a little nervous about being on my own for the first time in my life without either Jacob or my parents.

With everyone busy setting up the dorm or the apartment, that left me with nothing to do other than sit on the couch with my Jacob and wait for them all to leave.

"Are you sure about this, Jake?" I asked him for the hundredth time. "I won't have any fun without you. Just say the word and I'll come home."

"Nessie, I want you to enjoy college." My Jacob gave me a weak smile. "This is the time in your life to do things like this. Once you're done with school, we'll get married and I won't make you do anything that you don't want to do. Just please, Nessie, give college a shot."

"I only want you, Jacob. Why can no one see that?" I tried my hardest not to beg again. I had more respect for myself than that.

"And you have me." Jake said slowly. "But I would feel awful if I kept you from experiencing the world on your own before we commit ourselves to each other for the rest of our lives."

"What about you?" I asked, trying not to huff. "It isn't fair that I'm off at school having fun if you're stuck in La Push working."

"This is a good thing, Ness." Jacob chuckled. "Your family isn't here to stop you from doing whatever you want. You're finally getting let off the leash! Isn't that what you've always wanted? Do something crazy! Live a little, Ness. Please, for me?"

"I always pictured you here with me, Jake." I said quietly. "I'm just not sure that I can enjoy any human experience if I don't have you by my side."

"You don't need me here to have fun, Ness." Jacob said, but his eyes were just as sad as mine were. "Please, baby, this is hard for me too. But I'll come visit as often as I can and we're going to Skype every night and I've left you three of my shirts for you to sleep in. We're going to get through this. I just need you to not be miserable...with the imprint bond, any major emotion that you have gets sent to me. I feel what you feel, Ness. So if you are sad all of the time, I won't be able to focus on anything but making you happy right then and there."

"I didn't know that it was that hard for you, having me as an imprint." I suddenly felt like crying. Would my Jacob feel this right now? Did he know how much it hurt me to just think about being away from him?

"Renesmee." It was soft when he said my full name, almost like a kiss into the air.

"Jacob." I said his name just as softly, tenderly placing my palm on his cheek.

"I love you with all of my heart, Nessie." Jake looked at me with those deep brown eyes, trying to convey not just with his words how he felt. "I know that this is going to be a hard couple of years, but I know that we can get through this. I need to take control of the Packs now that Sam has decided to try and stop phasing for Emily. There's a civil war going on between Sam's old Pack and mine. No one knows what to do. And with Seth leaving, that's one less of my loyal allies that will be on the Rez. I'm _needed_ in La Push, Nessie."

He paused, sighed, and kissed me lightly on the lips. "But I am also needed here. My sole purpose in life is to make you happy and I can't do that from so far away. I'm torn, Ness. I have a duty to you and a duty to my tribe."

"I promise I'll be good and have a lot of fun here." I swore, seeing how much more difficult I was making this for my Jacob. "With summer classes and how many I've already comped out of, I'll only need two years, Jake. Two years and then all will be right how it's supposed to be. We'll be together for the rest of our lives in La Push; me by your side as you lead the tribe and the Pack."

"You have no idea how good that sounds, Ness." Jake pulled me in close for a I-need-to-know-that-you-are-really-going-to-come-b ack-to-me hug.

"Hey, hey, break it up in there." Emmett laughed when I instinctively jumped a little in Jake's arms. "Sorry, Ren. I didn't mean to scare you. It was a joke."

"I thought you were my dad." I admitted. Though my parents gave Jacob and me permission to get married when I finished school, I think that some part of them wished that I never wanted to grow up and leave them for Jake. I could see it in my Daddy's eyes whenever he saw an intimate gesture between the two of us.

"Well, I for one think that your dorm is going to be the coolest hot spot in the Walker Complex." Bella said, coming into the room and pretending not to notice that I was practically sitting in Jake's lap since I moved when I got scared.

"Thanks, Momma." I smiled and tried to disentangle myself from Jacob.

"I think she needs a lava lamp and then her room will be complete." Rosalie told my dad as they joined us in the living room as well. "I had one in my first dorm room and I think it would be a nice final touch."

"When you went to college lava lamps were still in style." Dad joked, he smiled when he saw me but I could tell that this was hard for him, too. "Do you want to check out your new room?"

I nodded and for the next fifteen minutes, my family showed me all of the changes they had added to the bland exterior. Then we went to visit Nahuel and Seth's new apartment. It was just as well furnished, if not more so than my dorm was. All the latest technology and most comfortable couches/beds. There were four beds, though Nahuel and Seth would only take up two of them. The spare bedrooms were for wolves that would come visit/check up on us.

A few of the wolves thought it odd that a werewolf would be sharing a house with a half-vampire hybrid, but if anyone voiced their opinion, Jake was the first one to remind them of his imprint's status. The Pack and the Cullens were on friendly terms because of Jacob's bond to me. Vampires weren't off limits, and the wolves loved to tear apart stray red-eyed nomads that were thirsting for human blood, but the Cullens definitely were to be treated with respect. Besides, if I was going to be Jacob's bride in a few years, the tribe needed to be prepared for a half-vampire living on the Rez.

By the time that Jacob dropped me off at my dorm, my roommates were all back. It was dark and all of their parents had already started the journey home. I begged Jacob to stay the night, but he kissed me and promised that he would be back in a week to see how I was doing. I couldn't handle a week away from my Jacob, but I knew that this was where I had to be and the Rez was where he needed to be right now.

"Oh, my gosh! Who was that hottie?" A squeal came from the living room when Jacob was on his way down the hall. I knew that he could still hear us since he hadn't gone that far and I hoped that he was blushing when I replied, "Oh, you mean Jake? That's my fiance."

The squealer was the blonde named Jessica who instantly wanted to know everything about Jacob. Mainly, if he had any brothers that were as hot as he was.

"Sorry, no brothers," I replied and Jessica frowned. "But the natives all look like they could be brothers. Just ask Tara." I hinted at my best friend who had been silent throughout the conversation.

"Um, yeah, Seth looks a little like Jake." Tara said, sounding nervous for the first time since I had met her.

"Oooh, who is Seth?" Ashley asked in just the same voice as Jessica had. The two of them were from the same high school, just like Tara and I were, and Hannah and Haleigh were.

"Seth is my soul mate." Tara said almost defensively. Ah, so that's what it was. Tara didn't like the way that the girls wanted to oogle at our men.

"What about you?" I asked, trying to draw attention away from the wolves and still be involved in this first day bonding that was needed. "Do you guys have someone special?"

"Roel and I have been dating on and off again for three years. He's at Washington U with me, but I doubt I'll get to see him much. He's two years older than us." Ashley rolled her eyes. "If the idiot will ever commit, then I'll call him my soul mate."

"I've never had a...boyfriend." Haleigh said quietly, her voice delicate like a baby's. Or, I think it was Haleigh. The twins were dressed in the same outfit but different colors and their hair and faces were identical. Haleigh was in blue, right? Hannah in green, right?

"I broke up with Chad before I came to college." Hannah said, a little bit smug over her sister's lack of action. "He was a dreamboat, but not in the exotic way like your Jake is."

"What about you, Jessica?" I asked. "You have to leave someone special behind?"

"Yeah, Jess, tell her." Ashley teased her own best friend.

"Well, my boyfriend was Bradley...and then there was Shane." Jessica let out a laugh. "I'm just glad they never figured it out. Why is it that the hot ones are also the most hot headed?"

"Two boyfriends?" Haleigh asked in disbelief.

"I wouldn't exactly call Shane my boyfriend." Jessica raised her eyebrows suggestively.

"Tmi." Tara laughed. "Too much information!"

As I looked around the dorm and saw how well we were all getting along together, I knew that I would have a great year with these girls by my side. Even if I didn't have Jacob with me all of the time, I think that I could get along fine enough here. I could make myself as happy as I wanted here. Jacob would visit me every week and I could get through this year.

That's what I told myself in the beginning.

But then Jacob got so busy that he visited less and less. We still Skyped every night, but it hurt to see his face and not be able to touch it. And there were new wolves to take care of so I couldn't really blame him for staying away. Jacob was the leader of the Pack and the tribe. He had responsibilities that didn't involve coddling me. So I kept my discomfort to myself. I wouldn't let myself get any more sad than I thought was warranted, and so Jacob never knew that I was depressed. On the inside, I was always thinking happy thoughts so that I wouldn't trigger something in Jake. But on the outside, I was a mess.

I think that the girls noticed, though. So they tried to help any way they could. Tara understood what I was going through since we were both imprints and she felt the bond, but I swore her to secrecy against telling Seth. That would be just what I needed, for Seth to tell Jake that I couldn't handle myself and needed to be rescued. Tara was my solid rock who wouldn't judge me if I silently cried in her bed with her or who didn't care that sometimes she had to make me go to class.

It was Ashley and Jessica who really came to my rescue. They introduced me to another way to feel better about the separation: getting drunk out of my mind. I know that I was underage (and really really underage if you counted my real age), but it didn't really matter to me. I wasn't legally here. I mean, I was a half-vampire, for crying out loud! Human rules didn't really apply to me, or so I told myself.

Ashley's boyfriend supplied us with the alcohol and I provided them with a show. The first time I got drunk, it took fourteen shots to get me tipsy. Another ten to get my vision blurred. It was amazing to them considering what a lightweight both of them were, but I didn't care that they thought I could "hold my liquor" better than any of the guys we sometimes drank with.

It wasn't until we invited Tara that I felt guilty about the drinking. It had been almost three months of classes and secretly drinking. I had wanted to keep Tara out of it because as much as I trusted her, I knew that she would probably overreact and tell Seth about it, with would in turn mean that Jacob would find out.

"What are you doing, Rennie?" Tara screamed at me after my twentieth shot of tequila. She had sat by and watch up until this point, not drinking anything that she didn't bring herself. We had gone to a 'small get-together' with Jess and Ash that consisted of ten people in the dorm a block away from ours.

"Shhh, Tara, don't worry about it." I slurred slightly. "I can handle much more than this. It's in my DNA." And then I laughed and laughed at my own joke. No one else got it but Tara since no one else knew that I was part vampire; whenever I had made this joke before, the girls assumed that I was Irish because of my copper curls.

"Yeah, I can see that." Tara frowned. "So what, then? You've just been getting wasted every Friday night? Is that it? How long has this been going on? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I don't know." I shrugged. Jessica and Ashley looked guilty from where they stood next to a few guys, Roel included, in the corner.

"We didn't know that it was that big of a deal." Jessica spoke up, her eyes glazed with drunken stupor. "In our town, if you haven't had whiskey by the time you're twelve, well, you might as well move to a convent."

"We're s-sorry." Ashley let out a giggle, unable to stay serious when she was this tipsy.

"Dude, who's the buzz-kill?" Jimmy asked. "I thought this was a party?"

"I'm leaving. Don't worry." Tara said angrily. "I just came to check on my friend."

When I didn't follow her out of the party, from then on, Tara wouldn't speak to me. It was a whole month before she would even look me in the eyes.

"I'm sorry, Tara." I said one night when I couldn't handle the silent treatment any longer. She had been studying with the twins all morning and now was the only time that I had caught her alone.

"Look, Ren. I get it. You miss Jake and you have a void to fill. But alcohol isn't the only solution." Tara said tensely. "And I'm a little bit mad at you for not telling me everything. I thought that I was helping you but it was just the stupid alcohol making you feel better."

"No, no, you were making me feel better." I protested. "I just can't face another week without seeing Jake."

"Why don't you tell him that?" Tara asked.

"Because he'll hate that I've been miserable here. He told me one thing to do: experience human things. And I've been doing that. Drinking counts, right? That's very human. Most of the wolves have beer at bonfires. And I've seen Grandpa Charlie have some with Billy." I said quickly, trying to justify my actions.

"Jacob wouldn't hate you no matter what you did." Tara said gently. "But I think that he should know how unhappy you are. Christmas break is in a week. I think you should tell him when we go home for two weeks."

And so I did. It was painful to admit how much I had been hurting. Jacob was furious like I thought he would be. But not at me. He was mad that he wasn't there for me when I needed him. We spent the entire two weeks lying in each others' arms, him apologizing that he wasn't there for me. I assured him that it wasn't his fault, but I don't think he believed me.

When I had to go back to college, Jacob promised not to let his duties to me slip. I hated myself for how upset I made him. I should have been honest with him from the beginning. I didn't need to drink away my problems. I just needed to talk about them with the man that I loved.

During the spring semester, it was much easier. Whenever I needed to see Jacob, I would hitch a ride with Tara and Seth or with Nahuel. Sometimes Jacob came to visit me, but not as often as I went to see him. It was hard on him being away from the Pack and I respected that. I became more distant with Jessica and Ashley as our fondness for drinking didn't stay something that we had in common with each other but we were still friends.

I finished up my freshman year (though I was technically almost a junior already with my credits) with honors. I had a few weeks before summer classes started so I went home and enjoyed the time that I had with my family. My parents missed me dearly and Jacob missed me even more.

I hated being away from them but the sooner I get done with college, the sooner my real life can start.


	7. Year Ten

**(Ren: 10)**

"You can't leave me, Ren!" Tara complained. I had been in school for two years and both of the summers. It was now late July and Tara was preparing for her trip back to Washington University in a few weeks' time. This time, I wouldn't be joining her. Instead, I was in prep-mode for my wedding in September. Even though Alice was in charge of running the show, Jacob and I wanted our own say in the details. I wanted it to be absolutely perfect.

Right now, though, we were waiting for the Pack meeting to get over. Tara and I were lying in the grass, our heads next to each other as we stared up at the clouds. I was watching the birds fly behind the clouds with my advanced eyesight and Tara was making out shapes in the clouds.

"Technically, you're the one leaving me." I corrected her, rolling onto my side so I could give her a 'you know I'm right' look.

"I know that, smarty-pants." Tara rolled her eyes. "But, seriously, Ren, why can't you just get your Masters or something? I need you at school with me. You're my best friend!"

"I'll only be a short car ride away and you still have Seth and Nahuel at school with you. It won't be that bad." I promised. "And I'll make sure that Jake and I come visit often. It's hard on him to be away from his best friend, too. Just as hard as it will be for me to be away from you."

"Seth does seem happier when he's surrounded by his Pack brothers than when he's studying with me." Tara mused.

"Not true." Speak of the devil. When Tara heard her wolf's voice, she sat up quickly. I helped her stand up and watched as the boys headed this way.

Seth and Jake came sauntering over to us, the Pack meeting having just ended. Leah and Embry were close behind them. Quil was headed in the other direction in search of his twelve-year-old best friend, Claire Young, and Jared had already locked arms with Kim in the make-shift parking lot at the top of the hill. It wouldn't be long before Kim asked him to give up his wolf for her and their baby on the way.

There were a few new younger wolves, but so many of the familiar faces were gone from this crowd that I hardly recognized the Pack anymore. Besides, the younger ones weren't too fond of what I was since they hadn't been there when all of the Volturi stuff went down.

It was weird not to see Sam's face among the crowd. Since he had given up his wolf, I hardly ever saw him anymore. Though, he did come by to show off his second son the other day. Two boys so far: two-year-old Thomas Uley and baby Joseph Uley. I knew it made Jacob sad to see his former Alpha happy without the Pack since Jake could never give up his wolf, but I also knew that this was what my imprinter was made for. He was the one with the royal blood, after all, and his imprint would live forever.

"You mean to tell me that you're happier when you're studying than when you're with your wolves?" Tara asked, trying to catch Seth in a lie. Not that that was likely. Seth was honest to a fault.

"Anything that I do with you is better than anything that I do with anyone else, Pack included." Seth corrected her, earning himself a full-faced grin from his imprint. Even though they had been together for two years, it was still hard sometimes for Tara to understand the gravity of the imprint bond. "Besides, you smell better than these guys anyways."

Tara giggled at that and wrapped her arms around Seth in a bear hug. "I love you," she whispered into his chest, thinking that it was a private declaration. She still didn't understand that we all could hear her no matter how quietly she whispered but the rest of us acted like we didn't hear it.

"Hey, hey, none of that." Leah half-joked when she saw her little brother tilt his head down so that he could give Tara a delicate kiss on the lips. "Not in front of me, please."

"I'm sorry, sis," Seth grinned at her, "but sometimes I just have to kiss Tara or I'll die." He raised an eyebrow. "You don't want me to die, do you? Your own baby brother?"

Leah was laughing with the rest of them, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. Though neither she or Embry had imprinted on anyone yet, she still refused to go on a date with him. I felt sorry for them both: she, forever afraid that he'd leave her; he, forever unable to convince her that his love was as real as an imprint's love. It had been two years since my high school graduation and though Embry kept asking her out, Leah still refused to take pity on him and go out with him. She was so determined that he would imprint and make her miserable again that she forgot that by not accepting his love, she was making herself miserable right now all by herself.

Really, it was a sad sight to watch. I wished I could just grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she realized how stupid she was being...but I doubt that Leah would take that too well.

We were slowly becoming actual friends and I didn't want to ruin any of that. Without her brother around anymore and most of the old Pack members heading off to start their own lives (Sam, Paul, Collin, and Brady had all stopped phasing for their imprints and Jared was only a few months from doing so himself since Kim had just announced that she was pregnant), it was difficult for Leah to be left behind. Jacob was chief of the tribe and had responsibilities that even his Beta couldn't help him with. That just left Embry from the original Pack to talk to all the time and she was avoiding him like the plague whenever she could help it.

By default, I became her best friend. By choice, she had become one of mine.

"Can't have anyone dying on my watch." Jacob grinned, not noticing how upset his Beta was. That was what I was for. Jacob kept the Pack safe and, as his imprint, I tried to keep the moral up. I would have to have a talk with Leah later if she still seemed aggravated.

Jacob and Seth started joking around while Tara tried to keep up with them. She wasn't as good with come-backs as the wolves were, but being around them a lot she had picked up a lot.

"What do you say we get out of here?" I heard Embry ask Leah quietly but she kept staring straight ahead as if he hadn't spoken to her, pretending to be focused on the conversation in front of us. When he noticed that she wasn't listening, he sighed. "Lee, please, I just want to talk to you."

"Don't call me that." Leah did her best not to hiss for the noise would surely be noticed by the others.

"Don't ignore me, then." Embry's eyes narrowed angrily. "I just want to talk to you."

"Yeah, that's what you always say." Leah sighed. "Just drop it. I'm not going to be your f-buddy while you wait around for your soul mate."

"Unbelievable!" Embry let out a growl that was no doubt heard by the others. "I can't believe that is still how you see it!"

"Let's not do this here." Leah pleaded, her eyes darting frantically to the others who were still in conversation a few feet from them. When her eyes met mine, I looked away ashamed that I had been caught eavesdropping.

"Where, then?" Embry's hands were shaking in rage and I feared that he might phase so close to her. We didn't need another woman in La Push with scars like Emily's. Though, with Leah being a wolf, I'm not sure how long the scars would last on her ever-healing skin.

"Hey, Leah, what was the name of that fast food restaurant in Port Angeles you were talking to me about the other day?" I called over to the none-existent couple, trying to keep a fight from happening. Leah looked up at me gratefully and Embry just continued to glare at the back of her head.

"I think it was Jack-in-the-Box?" Leah said as she took a few steps closer to this conversation which had now come to a stop. Seth and Jacob's ears perked up at the mention of food and Tara laughed at the boys' constant need to feed. Embry gave a short wave to us before heading towards his car that had been parked right next to Leah's.

"That's the one with two tacos for ninety-nine cents, right?" I asked. "I've been dying to try a new fast food place. There is only so much McDonald's that I can eat."

"Oooh, tacos!" Jake was practically drooling. "Let's go right now, Ness."

I let out a laugh. "We can't just leave!"

"Oh, the meeting is over and I don't have anything to do until patrol tonight. Come on, Ness, what do you say? A little trip to Port Angeles?" Jake looked like a little kid on Christmas. He was never one to turn down a new restaurant. Even total dives were fun when I went with Jacob because he really appreciate food in a way that my half-vampire side never could. Since I had been going to school, I had gotten more accustomed to eating human food which would come in handy when I married Jacob in September.

"Sure, Jake, we can go." I turned to the others. "Anyone wanna go with us?"

"Cheap tacos?" Seth grinned. "Count us in."

Tara's parents weren't rich but they were definitely more well off than anyone from the Rez, including Seth. But since he was a wolf, he liked to provide for his lady. Unless it had to do with school, Tara never touched her parents' money. Seth made her life as comfortable as he could with the funds that he had. Jacob was like that, too, but at least he had a small fund from the tribe since he was the head Councilman, chief, and Alpha. Not to mention that Jacob's job at the repair shop paid more than Seth's shifts at Starbucks. When Seth was back for the summer, Jake let him work some of his shifts at Tony's but when he left in the fall, he'd be back to minimum wage. Needless to say, Seth was having a bit of trouble keeping up with Tara's usual lifestyle.

"What about you, Leah?" I asked, not wanting her to feel excluded.

She huffed. "I'd rather not be a fifth wheel but thanks, Ness."

"Oh, you wouldn't be a fifth wheel!" I tried to protest but Seth and Tara were already making googly eyes at each other.

"Really, it's fine." Leah gave a weak smile. "I'll come with you some other time."

When her back was turned and she was headed towards her car, I gave Jacob a pointed look. She sped off before I made my move. I placed my hand on his cheek and showed him exactly what was wrong with Leah. I hadn't used my gift since I had started high school and I think it startled Jake to see into my mind like that again. _She's in pain, Jake. Can't you see that? She feels like an outsider in her own Pack...you don't know what that feels like, but I do. And it sucks. _

Jacob gave me a nod and was about to protest that I was always accepted (even though it was a lie) but I stopped him. I wasn't finished. _I want to do something nice for Leah...I want to make her my Maid of Honor._

Seth and Tara were already in the car, though Seth could probably hear Jacob when he spoke up. "I thought you would choose Tara. She's your best friend."

"Leah is my best friend, too." I said slowly. "It might be different than it is with Tara, harder maybe, but Leah is very special to me."

"Of course, Nessie, you can choose whoever you want." Jacob was smiling so widely that I was afraid his mouth would break. It pleased him that I loved his Beta as much as he did. He would never have asked me to do this but the fact that I came to it on my own warmed his heart, I could tell. I wanted to be apart of his entire life, not just his human half. "But that means I can't have Seth be my best man. He and Tara should walk together."

"Oh, I can think of someone who would do it." There was a twinkle in my eyes and Jake let out a barking laugh.

"You're evil, you know that?" But I just grinned. I had a plan. I would make Leah see what an idiot she was about Embry if it killed me. Two people that belong together as much as the two of them do deserve to be happy. It was time to get Leah out of the way of her own happiness.

When I went to ask Leah to be my Maid of Honor the next day, at first she scoffed. "You've got to be kidding," was what she said. I probably should have waited until she had cooled off from patrol but I wanted to ask her about it the second that she was available. Her skin was sweat-streaked and her hair needed a good brushing, but she was beautiful to me. Exactly who I wanted in my wedding.

I smiled patiently. "Of course not! Jacob thinks it's a good idea. You're like a sister to him and to me, too."

"Since we're doing the wedding on the Rez, we'll need all the wolves we can up front so the Council won't freak out that my family is in the wedding party, too." I added, hoping that the protective instinct in her would kick in.

"So make me a bridesmaid." Leah responded coldly.

"Why don't you want to do this?" I asked angrily. I thought she would be happy about the honor. "Honestly tell me and I'll leave you alone."

"You know the last time I was the Maid of Honor?" Leah growled.

And then I got it. Sam and Emily's wedding.

She hadn't been able to turn her cousin down even after Emily stole her fiance. Imprinting was imprinting. Leah couldn't blame Emily for what Sam did. But she sure as hell blamed Sam. Having to watch firsthand as the man she had once loved married his one and only (who wasn't her) was tough for Leah. She spent most of the reception trying to drown it all away with the free booze. I had been physically eight, though I was two years old, when they tied the knot but even I understood what was going on.

Seth and Embry spent most of the wedding reception with her. Her brother tried to get her to stop drinking but Embry was taking shots right there with her: "You wanna be miserable? Fine by me. I'll keep you company. No one should be this miserable by themselves." I think that was the first time that Embry really looked past the hard exterior and felt the pain of being alone that Leah felt. He even got her to dance with him by the end of the night. Sure, it was a drunken display of spite towards Sam like "see me not caring that you broke my heart?" but to Embry it was the first time that Leah let herself go completely. She was free in a way that the imprints never were. She had no one to tell her to stop drinking, except her brother, and no one to keep her in a cage. Her happiness, or in this case misery, was the only thing that she had to worry about. And, Embry wanted to be a part of it.

But now Sam and Emily had two little boys and Leah still had no one because she wouldn't let Embry in. Even after almost twelve years since the initial imprinting-on-her-cousin thing, Leah still hadn't gotten over it. I'm only thankful that Emily didn't get pregnant on their honeymoon or Leah would never have been able to get over Sam like she did.

"It's not going to be the same." I promised. "You don't love Jacob."

Leah shook her head. "It doesn't matter. That's one more time that I won't be the one saying my vows. I'm going to die an old spinster...or worse, stay a wolf forever without a mate." She looked up at me with genuine fear in her eyes. "What if I screwed things up because I was with Sam?"

"I don't understand." I raised an eyebrow. "How would that have messed anything up?"

"Wolves mate for life, they're one of the few animals that do." Leah explained. "What if I can never love anyone else because I once loved Sam? We shared something that was deep and intimate and what if I can never have that again?"

"You don't honestly believe that do you? Sam found Emily after you so obviously it didn't effect him." I told her confidently.

"But Emily wasn't a wolf. I am." Leah seemed to want to beat this train of thought to death. "What if I'm the one that is messed up now?"

"Besides, if that were true, then you wouldn't be avoiding Embry so much." I pointed out. "You feel something for him that you won't let yourself admit. If you felt nothing for him then turning him down wouldn't hurt so much and neither would accepting him."

Leah rolled her eyes at my explanation but I could see that she was thinking about it. I had gotten to her, I knew that much. Whether she believed it or not was another thing.

"Please, Leah, I want you to be in my wedding. Don't let Sam steal anything else from you." I knew I was provoking her now but she would forgive me later. "To Hell with him!"

Leah grinned. "My, my. Little Nessie has some guts after all. I know that Jake warned you not to provoke an angry wolf so you must be gutsy and not foolish."

"Ah, but is it working?" I grinned back at her.

"You owe me, big." Leah conceded.

"Oh, yay!" I gave her a quick hug, knowing how much she hated the affection, but unable to stop myself. "I'm so glad that you agreed! This will be so much fun!"

"You do realize that this means that I get to plan the bachelorette party, right?" Leah asked as I turned to leave. "Maybe I might even get the pixie's help with it..." There was a devious smile on her face as she threatened me with Alice and my face drained of all color. She laughed when she saw how frightened I looked. "Oh, yes, this will definitely be fun."

The next few months flew by so quickly that I wondered where the time had gone. Before I knew it, it was the morning of my wedding. September 15th, two days after my tenth birthday.

Since we were having the wedding on the Reservation, I didn't have to keep up the ruse that Esme and Carlisle were my parents. I could have my actual father walk me down the aisle since the only human who wasn't a tribe member that was attending the ceremony would be Tara and she was an imprint in on the secrets or were my friends from college that thought my parents were dead and my 'brother' would be giving me away. Well, Rebecca who flew in yesterday was a tribe member but she didn't know about the Pack or vampires. It was easier to keep things from her than I thought it would be. Lies had become easier since I had grown up and been around humans more often.

Leah was my Maid of Honor (though she was not too happy with me and Jake when she found out that Embry was the Best Man), Tara, Rosalie, and Rachel were my bridesmaids (with Seth, Emmett, and Paul as groomsmen), and twelve-year-old Claire Young was my flower girl and ring-bearer. Rebecca Black, Jacob's other sister was invited to be in the ceremony but she and I had only met once before yesterday so she turned it down out of respect. Alice was in charge of orchestrating the entire wedding and didn't want anything to go wrong so she was also sitting this one out. I had always imagined that Carlisle would officiate my wedding, just like he did to my parents, but since we were having it on tribal land, Billy would be doing the honors since he was a Council member.

"Oh, honey, you look lovely." Bella commented as she handed me my something borrowed and blue: a blue diamond hair clip that she was lending me. For the old, I had the garter that Esme had worn at her third wedding to my grandfather that she was willing to part with. The something new came from both of my aunts: a pair of heels for the wedding that you could take the heel part off of to make flats at the reception.

"Thanks, Momma." I replied. Though I had been an adult and on my own for three years, I still called my mother 'Momma' from time to time. This moment, especially, felt like a perfect time to. In half an hour, I would be a married woman and no longer her little girl. I let her relish in this moment just like I was. My childhood ended long ago, but I was still going to be her daughter forever. Nothing could change that. Not even marrying my Jacob.

"I love you, sweetie." Bella would be crying if vampires could. "And I always will. More than my own life."

When she said those words, I reached for my necklace. Though I hadn't hardly ever worn it, the locket that my mother gave me when the Volturi threatened our family when I was just a baby was around my neck now. As was the promise bracelet that my Jacob had given to me as a baby; it had been modified to fit my growing wrist over the years but there it sat next to the charm bracelet from Jake when he first asked me out.

"I love you, too, Momma." I said, feeling tears well up in my eyes like they couldn't in hers.

"Hey, no crying, young lady! Don't make me come up there!" Alice yelled from downstairs. We were camped out in Leah's house getting ready, well, the women were. Daddy and the others were at Jacob's house...soon to be my house...getting ready.

"I'm not crying!" I yelled back, but I laughed as I wiped the few tears that had fallen off of my face. "I must look a mess, huh?"

"No, sweetie, you look...like a real bride." Bella complimented, nearly choking up. A human reflex. "So beautiful."

"I hope Jacob thinks so." I said nervously, smoothing out my long sparkly sleeveless ballgown. The design had been my idea and Rosalie had run with it. She spent a month sewing it perfectly (and that's a long time for a vampire who never sleeps) and it was even better than I could have imagined it. I felt like a princess.

Bella laughed. "Of course he's going to think so. Jake would think you looked beautiful if you got married in a potato sack."

"My little girl would never get married in a potato sack." Edward said from the door and I turned around quickly.

"Daddy!" I beamed at him and let him hug my shoulders while I remained sitting. "What are you doing over here so soon?"

"I just wanted to wish my little girl good luck." Edward kissed the top of my head where my hair was still held in curlers to perfect my natural ringlets. "And make sure that all of her dreams were about to come true."

"Jacob is the only wish that I've ever made." I responded honestly. "I love him, Daddy. More than myself."

"I know, Nessie." My father smiled that crooked grin of his. The one that won my mother over all those years ago. "Actually, I have a present for you."

"You didn't have to get me anything." I tried to protest but he just reached for the small box he had been holding behind his back. When I opened it up, I didn't know what to say. "Oh, Daddy, it's so beautiful."

The necklace was old, who knows how old, and had the Mason family crest on it in small loopy designs. I had seen it around the house growing up but had never been allowed to touch it because it was one of the only things that a dying Elizabeth Mason had left her son. To feel it in my hands now was unreal.

"But you love this necklace." I tried to hand it back to him. "It was your mother's."

"And now it is yours." Edward commented, placing it back in my hands. "Look on the back..."

There was the Cullen crest taking up half of the other side, something that definitely had been added recently. On the other half, was a wolf with 'Black' written in Quileute.

"May you never forget exactly who you are." Edward said softly. This time I really did cry as I wrapped my arms around my father. Alice would kill me when she saw my mascara tear streaks but I didn't care.

"I love you, Daddy." I whispered in his ear as I hugged him tightly. "Thank you."

I had him clasp the necklace and then I tucked it into the front part of my dress along with the locket from my mother so that only the chains showed.

"Alice?" Edward called out in a normal speaking voice. When the pixie was in the room, he looked at her as if he weren't surprised that she had gotten there so quickly. "I believe Renesmee needs a touch up. I'm afraid that my gift was overwhelming."

"I knew that it would be." Alice chastised him but there was a tiny grin on her lips. She had gotten better at seeing my future and the wolves that were intertwined closely with my life as well. Ten years of practicing and she could finally see me clearly, or as clear as she was ever going to. The wolves were still trickier but as long as one was connected with me by a close bond or physical proximity, she could know what their futures held in store for them as well. She could see my Jacob nearly as well as she saw my future.

Alice made me pretty again by fixing my makeup and letting my hair out of the curlers. My red tinted locks fell around my face and down half of my back. I realized I would have to get a haircut soon and it saddened me. I had cut it right after graduation when I was getting ready to head off to school and that had felt symbolic: freedom. But now to do so would feel awful like I was completely getting rid of my childhood...that was what I wanted, wasn't it?

"Oh, look at the time!" Alice flustered, helping me stand up. "Can't have you late for your own wedding, can we?"

I smiled. "Jacob wouldn't like that very much."

"No, I don't think he would." Alice giggled her bell-chime laugh.

We got in our cars and drove to the beach where Alice and Esme had set up early this morning. I was Rows of white chairs with lavender bows lined the aisle, each seat filled with a family member or tribe member. The Cullens who were not in the wedding party took their seats on the left side next to Nahuel, his aunt, and the Denali's. I wasn't really close to any of the other vampires that my family knew. I had invited Zafrina but she was unable to attend.

I had a few of my high school buddies in attendance: John Calzone, my sophomore prom date, and Janet Margret, the first human that Nahuel ever dated. My roommates from college were also in the audience: Jessica Dandy was ready to flirt, I could tell by the way that her dress fit every curve but Ashley Appleton, on the other hand, was soon to become Mrs. Roel Juarez and I'd be attending her wedding in a few months-she finally got him to settle down! I was happy that my human friends had kept up with me if only for this one event. Pretty soon I would have to give up on my human friends since I would never age and they would soon grow old and die. I would outlive even Tara, but at least I would get to remain her friend until the end.

"Are you ready, Renesmee?" Edward asked, taking my hand in his. Most of the family had disappeared into the crowd already, leaving only the wedding party with me. They all smiled when I nodded at my father. "Well, then, let's get you married now, shall we?"

Claire took her basket filled with white rose petals and purple lilies and started down the aisle when Alice cued the musicians. Rachel and Paul followed, then Rosalie and Emmett, and finally Tara and Seth with goofy grins on their faces. Leah looked none too happy with me for making her walk down the aisle with Embry, but hopefully if my plan worked then I'd be the one begrudgingly being in her wedding party in a few years. She looked stunning, though, even with a grimace on her face. Her dress, though still pale lavender like my bridesmaids' gowns, was about an inch shorter than theirs and had a darker shade of a ribbon than the others had tied behind their backs. I found the one color that matched all of their skin tones.

I took a deep breath and took my first step towards my future. The moment I stepped out from under the covering of the tent, Jacob's eyes were on me. He didn't blink even once as I took step after step towards him. I was entranced as much as he was-my feet didn't feel the ground beneath me or hear the gushes of the crowd as they stood up and stared-all I focused on was my Jacob. His smile grew bigger each time I tried to hurry my father along. The crowd laughed at my impatience but I didn't care. I was so close to finally having all of my dreams come true!

At long last, I was at the end of the aisle. "Who gives this woman to be wed?" Billy asked and it was all that I could take to let Edward answer. "I do." My father kissed my cheek and released his grip on me, handing me over to Jacob.

"Hi," Jake mouthed to me once my hands were in his and Billy began the ceremony. It was strange to see Jacob's father not in his wheel chair but placed on a chair that made him at eye level to us.

"Hi," I mouthed back, breaking out into a grin so wide that my cheeks hurt. I felt bad about ignoring Billy's speech, but I had heard it at the rehearsal last night. Not to mention that half of it was in Quileute-I had been learning it for Jacob but some of it still slipped past knowledge of the language. It was a tricky thing to master, even with a mind like mine.

When it came time for our vows, I nearly cried at Jacob's. Mine felt stupid in comparison to the thoughtfulness that he put into his. But he was tearing up, as well. We were open and honest and shared all of the love that we had for one another. I felt blessed to have a moment like that with Jacob, even if I had to share it with everyone that we both loved.

"Jacob Ephraim Black, do you take this woman to be your true wife?" Billy asked, his voice deep and almost magical as he spoke. "To never let harm befall her and to cherish her despite her faults? To grow old and grey together..." Half of the crowd let out a little laugh at the impossibility of his words, but he continued with the Quileute ritual anyways. "To be one with her for all of your days? To love her and never forget how precious your bond is?"

"I do." Jacob's voice was sturdy and powerful, almost as confident as his Alpha voice was. I trembled under the severity of it. He was my Alpha now, too.

Claire handed me Jacob's ring with a blush on her innocent cheeks. I gently guided it onto Jacob's left hand and he flexed his hand, getting used to the feeling of it. I knew that he would have to take it off when he phased (we learned that the hard way when Sam lost ring after ring), but I liked the way that it looked on his hand. He was mine, now and forever, and this was a symbol of our love.

"Renesmee Carlie Cullen, do you take this man to be your true husband?" Billy turned to me and I nodded before he even got another word out. The crowd laughed at that, too. Billy smiled at me, though, and continued. "To protect his heart as if it were your own and to cherish him despite his faults? To grow old and grey together and to be one with him for all of your days? To love him and never forget how precious your bond is?"

"I do!" I exclaimed, trying to control my emotions. Jacob placed the ring on my hand and I smiled as I looked down at the sparkling gem. I would never take it off again. For the rest of eternity, I would wear Jacob's mother's ring on my hand.

"Then, by the power of the Great Spirits and the state of Washington, I now pronounce you husband and wife." Billy pounded his tribal stick on the ground three times. "You may now kiss the bride, son."

Jacob's left hand reached up and touched my face as he pulled me close to him. "Que quowle, my dear Nessie." Jacob whispered as he touched his lips softly to mine.

"Always," I replied once our kiss sealed our fate-I would always be with my Jacob.

"Welcome to the tribe, Nessie." Billy congratulated me when I hugged his neck. "I know that you'll love my son right. I can see how happy you make him."

"He makes me so much happier than I could ever make him." I replied to my now father-in-law. And I meant it. Jacob always knew how to make me happy. I wasn't sure if it was the imprint bond or his undeniable compassion that made him such a good friend and leader.

Jacob took my arm and ran his through it so that he could lead me down the aisle. The looks on my family's faces let me know that I had their support. Though I knew that my parents wished that I had waited longer to get married, I also knew that they were happy that I would have Jacob as my mate for the rest of my life. He was kind and generous and loving; he would treat me right, maybe even better than my parents could have because of the imprint bond. Edward's face fell when I thought that and I forgot for a moment that my father could read my mind. My mother seemed too distracted by my nuptials to keep my mind shielded like she had been doing for years.

'I love you, Daddy.' I thought to him. 'Thank you for not killing my Jacob over the years. I love him, too.'

I didn't get a reply from him, though, because we passed by my human friends and the Packmates that were stable enough to be around this many vampires. Everyone seemed happy for us, even the wolves who didn't quite understand how a wolf could imprint on a half-vampire. This was it! I was really a part of the tribe now. I was the Alpha's wife.

Wife.

I was Jacob's wife!

The word gave me a tingly feeling.

I smiled at him as we neared the end of the aisle where we would take a few pictures with the wedding party and then head over to the reception. He was grinning back at me, probably had been for awhile, and I couldn't help but laugh at the adorableness of it. He looked so innocent and carefree in that moment that I hoped it would never leave his face. He had been so stressed out with Pack responsibilities for the past few years that it was refreshing to have just one day where he was this loose. I loved that smile on him.

The smile stayed on his lips the entire evening-even when Leah came storming into the house cussing us out for putting her into this situation, though she wouldn't tell us what happened or why Embry was sulking. Nothing could spoil this day.

And when we finally shooed everyone away a little past midnight and headed towards the stairs, Jacob had a darker glint in his eyes. My Alpha finally got to claim what was his-and I gave it to him freely all night long. Jacob's raw wolf passion would probably have hurt me if I were human but lucky for me I had vampire in me so I had the stamina to keep up with him. We were finally together as one like I had been imagining since I first got a crush on my imprinter all those years ago. Every feeling, every touch, every emotion was shared between the two of us in an experience that I can't even begin to explain. We were made for each other-created to bring happiness to the other.

Needless to say, we didn't leave our new bedroom for a week and only then because another wolf phased and Jacob was needed.


	8. Year Eleven

**(Ren: 11)**

Jacob and I were blissfully happy as a married couple. Every minute that I got to spend with him was beyond wonderful. I was only ten and a half and my life was already complete. It felt unreal how happy one person could make me. And I wasn't just saying that because he was phenomenal in bed (and in the shower and on the kitchen counter and...well, you get my drift). Jacob and I connected on a spiritual level as well as physical. He was my Alpha and I was his imprint. We were literally created to make each other happy.

The only times that I was unhappy with being Jacob's wife were when he had to go do his Pack duties. I understood completely that he had to leave me in order to run the Pack, but it still saddened me to be left alone all day. When Old Quil decided to hand over the reigns of chief to Jacob, the rightful heir of the tribe, that was when my days grew even longer and I decided that I wouldn't wait around idly anymore. I had to do something with my life other than be Jacob's wife. I was a free spirited half-vampire with my entire life ahead of me, why should I be useless to the tribe? I wanted to be beneficial to those that I loved, not a burden.

That was when I decided to take over as Wolf Mom. I know that sounds stupid, but that was what Emily was to the younger wolves when Sam was Alpha and that was what I wanted to be for the new generation now. I felt useless only catering to my Jacob when there was an entire Pack of young wolves that needed an endless supply of food for their growing bodies, a place to crash when patrols ran long and they're parents didn't know about the whole turning-into-a-giant-wolf thing, and a shoulder to cry on if things got to be too much for them. I could be that person for them, if they'd let me.

Other than Jacob, Leah, Embry, and Quil (now that the others had quit phasing for their imprints and Seth was at college again), there were six new wolves running around. Some of the original new phasing wolves from when the Volturi were here trying to kill me ten years ago had either managed to quit phasing completely and lived their lives like normal humans on a different Reservation or had imprinted and were also out of the game. These six new ones had phased for the first time within the last three years.

Kyle Lake was the first one to phase of this new group. He phased three years ago, the day after his seventeenth birthday. If that wasn't bad enough, his first phase was in front of a human that didn't take it too well. Kyle's girlfriend, well EX-girlfriend now and she will tell you that the first chance she gets, Carol Stackhouse made him mad like she always did. She liked to rile him up and then have passionate make-up sex. They had been dating for a year and a half when he phased for the first time. And she did NOT take kindly to him turning into a giant wolf in front of her. She refused to have anything to do with him after that, though he's been trying to win her back ever since.

As awful as it was for Kyle, I felt bad for Carol even more, though. Everyone thought she was crazy and those that knew the truth had to deny that she wasn't crazy. She wasn't an imprint, so she had no rights to the truth. It sucked, but that was the way that it always was. Bella was the only human who knew of the Pack's existence that wasn't an imprint but since she was no longer a human and had put two-and-two together on her own, she had a weird pass with the Council. Well, and my grandpa Charlie knew about wolves because Jacob phased in front of him...but two people in the last couple hundred years was too many for the tribe. Every time I saw her around the Reservation, I gave her a weak smile and kept on walking. It wasn't my place to interfere.

The next new wolf was David Muddywater, an angry boy of seventeen that has to lie to his parents about where he goes at night or why he leaves the room when there is an argument. He was the reason that Jacob was away from me my first year of college so much. He was only fifteen when he first phased and had a hard time adjusting to this life. I think it was because he was so alone; no one could know about his secret and that put him at arms length from his parents and little brother and all of his closest friends.

David is happier now since his little brother, Matt Muddywater, phased four months ago. Matt is sixteen and more excited to join the Pack then I was told Seth was when he first phased. For two years, he had been estranged with his brother because of the big secret and even though their parents still don't know and they blame David for getting Matt into a "gang," the young boy couldn't be happier. Though he is the newest member to the Pack, he is also the most dedicated already. Matt brings joy into his brother's life and that is something that none of the other Pack members have been able to do since he first phased. He was always optimistic and such a wonderful kid to be around that Jacob sometimes joked that he was 'little Seth.' I thought it was kind of cute.

A year ago, we got another surprise addition to the Pack. Emily's parents and younger siblings came from Makah to visit the new little baby that she recently popped out. It was the first time that the whole family had come down, usually it was just her mother or sometimes both of her parents. The Young family was made up of Quileute and Makah natives for generations. It shouldn't have surprised anyone that a family with an imprint in it and two wolves (the Clearwaters were their cousins) would include another wolf eventually.

Her little brother Evan Young phased when he went for a walk that first night. He had wandered up the beach where my house was and his instincts took over. If Jacob wasn't off duty that night, I might have had to fight the poor boy. He was fifteen, gangly, and shaking in his new form when I first saw him. He was more scared of me than I was of him, but still Jacob ordered him to phase back. I handed him a blanket to cover himself and he growled at me. Though he has been staying with the Uleys for a year now, he has yet to adjust to me living on the Reservation. His instincts to kill vampires is stronger than most new wolves' so I try to keep my distance from him.

The only reason that their mother let Evan stay with Emily's new family was because Sam promised to look out for the boy and Emily swore that it would be a good experience for Evan to "see how the other half of him lives". I know, through Tara who heard it from Seth who talked to Evan a few months ago, that living at the Uleys was difficult on Evan, though. He was a sixteen year old kid who had been the baby of the family and was now surrounded by his sister's kids night and day. He wasn't used to being the oldest child in the house or having responsibilities all the time. He had to abandon almost all of the people that he loved in order to move here and that was hard enough on him without having to turn into a giant wolf all of the time or be a live-in babysitter.

Evan didn't have to get rid of all of his friends from the Makah Reservation, though. His best friend Brody Littlefoot came to visit him once he decided to make the switch permanent. Eight months ago, Brody burst out of his skin and turned into a giant wolf the second that he stepped onto La Push land. It made me wonder how many other Makah teenagers would phase if given the right amount of vampires in the area. Jacob had a theory that Brody was somehow related to one of the original Pack members, or even one of the lesser wolves from La Push that the history books always neglected. Besides the Blacks, Uleys, and Atereas, there were the Clearwater descendants, the Mantarays, and the Lilyflowers that had all had at least one family member to phase when the Volturi showed up. I hoped that that was the case and not that the Makah Reservation was filled with potential wolves, too.

Brody's parents weren't as willing to let him just pick up and move to another Reservation as the Youngs were. He spent the entire summer here and all of his Christmas break, but he had to return for school. There were occasional weekends were he would come back and work on phasing but it was spring now and that meant he wasn't around very much. I felt bad for the kid because he had two years ahead of him until he turned eighteen where he had to lie to his parents and sneak back here to be with the Pack like he wanted to. Jacob and Embry were trying to teach Brody how to control his anger and stop phasing all of the time but that was a lesson that took time and guided practice and those were two things that Brody didn't have a lot of. His friends back in Makah thought he was a freak because all he talked about was La Push (not to mention the fact that he shot up two feet in a weekend and now had muscles out of nowhere). It was tough on him to be a lone wolf while he was away, but he kept practicing so that he could control himself. He had been a little bit in love with his best friend's sister and took Emily's scars seriously. Now that he understood that her imprinter did that to her, he vowed he would learn to control himself no matter what the cost was.

The sixth and final new member to the Pack was also a relative of one of the originals. Nine years ago, Embry got so mad that his mother wouldn't tell him who his father was that he phased in their living room. She made him leave the house and never return. While he was bumming a couch at the Clearwaters', his mother moved out of their little shack in the middle of the night and, later we found out, that she swore she was getting away from "all of this crazy wolf nonsense." Little did she know that when she moved back to Makah and tried to start her life over again with a new man, that SHE was the one carrying the wolf gene. This one was a shock to all of us. We had always assumed that Embry's father had to be one of the original's fathers (most suspected Joshua Uley because he had been unfaithful before) but no one had guessed that it was his mother that was a decedent. Either that or Tiffany Call got knocked up by wheelchair-bound Billy Black or Old Quil Ateara who was practically hospitalized himself before she fled the Reservation.

The only reason we know any of this for sure is because Tiffany Call died six months ago in a freak boating accident and her son, who's father never came forward in Makah, was sent to live with Embry. It broke his heart to see his half-brother end up like he was: no known father and mother who could never be there for him. Embry loved having a brother, though. He was so happy to take in the kid and even happier when he realized that Sean was in the Pack. At just nine years old, Sean Call was the youngest wolf to ever phase. I had a theory that Sean phased not to protect himself against vampires but to bond Embry with him even more.

The longer I live on the Reservation, the more that I believe that the Great Spirits are working in our favor. How else would my Jacob have loved my mother so much that he would go to war to protect his imprint's mother even though I wasn't born and Bella made it clear that they were just friends? I know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I know that Jacob was protecting me even then. If Bella had died, then I would haven't been created. Jacob is a stronger Alpha because of our bond and now he will be able to run the Pack for a very, very long time. No new wolves have to phase unless they are actually needed. That has to be the work of a higher power.

Anyways, the new Pack members needed some place to go to feel safe to crash when they got off patrol and couldn't get home. Emily had opened her home as an all-day buffet, but at night the boys were on their own. I wanted to provide both for everyone. That was why I went to Billy about buying some land to build a house.

"You know that I'm no longer on the Council now that Jake has taken over, don't you?" My father-in-law asked me. "Why don't you ask him?"

"I want this to be a surprise for the Pack." I replied. "And, especially from Jake. If my family is allowed just one night to be on the Reservation, we can have the house completely built before anyone notices."

"And you're sure a surprise is the best idea?" Billy asked good-naturedly.

"I'll give heads up to the Pack that my family will be visiting me so that they won't freak out, but instead of staying at my house, they'd be helping me build the Pack House a mile from my home in the woods right off of my property. I just don't know who the land belongs to and would like to buy it."

"Didn't Jake tell you?" Billy looked up at me from his wheelchair even though I was sitting across from him. "The chief owns everything that doesn't have a deed."

"You mean, it's already our land?" I asked, happy to have something work out easily. That area of land was exactly where I wanted to build and would have been disappointed if it had belonged to someone who wasn't willing to sell.

"It sure is." Billy smiled. "I'll even do you a favor. I'll talk to the rest of the Council, except for Jacob of course, and get them to approve the use of land for a Pack House."

"Oh, thank you, Billy!" I wrapped my arm around him in a hug, leaning over in my chair to do so.

"You're family now, Nessie. You can call me Dad." A grin spread across my face when he said that. I wanted nothing more than to be included in every part of Jacob's life.

It took three days for the Pack House to get approved by the Council but on the morning of the fourth day, the house was already built. My family drove in from all over the country to help out. Since my high school graduation, everyone besides my parents moved out of the Cullen Compound. They were used to abandoning themselves when they left the Compound; it was what they had always done. Ever fifty years, the Cullens would meet back up and be a family again...or so it had been before Bella and I came into their lives. Now, things were a little different.

Edward and Bella were going to Dartmouth now that I was out of the house and married off. It had been my father's dream for them to go together but my birth had kind of put that on hold. They were posing as nineteen year olds in their second year (though that was actually how old they looked) and were going in as high school sweethearts. Edward Martin and Bella Thompson attending school together again, but with different names, was weird for them. Well, weird for Bella. Edward was used to a new identity with each town. I know that mom hated changing her name for school, but it was the best way to stay under the radar. After all, Isabella Marie Swan-Cullen was supposed to be twenty-nine, not ten years younger. My father promised her that the next city they moved to, she could be whoever she wanted. I had a feeling she would want to be a Cullen. That was always her dream.

Esme and Carlisle were doing the doctor/nurse duo thing up in Portland, Oregon. I was proud of my grandfather for continuing to do good work for the human community despite being a vampire and even more proud of my grandmother for finally taking interest in it. Esme was in the maternity ward and Carlisle was a general surgeon. When they first moved to Portland, they went as Carlisle Jones and Esme Smith, two twenty-six year olds right out of med school who didn't know each other. They 'courted' for the past few years and he would have to propose to her in a few months or so. They younger they started out and the more normal human interactions that they go through, the longer that they can stay at one place. The back story is always important, I learned long ago.

Alice and Jasper were the closest of my relatives. They had moved only a short distance to Port Angeles where "Madame Alasonya" opened up shop as a clairvoyant and her bodyguard, who's name no one ever knows, stands watch over her and somehow emits fear into all of them. This was a risky move, Edward complained when he heard that his sister wanted to do this, but no one can really stop Alice from doing anything. Alice needs to be around people in order to better hone her ability and this is the best way to become accustomed to humans without rising suspicion or having to go to high school/college again. Another reason for this ruse was that Alice wanted to track down more vampire-human hybrids but the best way to get information from humans was to be one. With vampires, it was easier. You simply asked and they told whatever they knew. But they were avoiding the vampires as best they could or else they'd give themselves away. She had a suspicion that there was a vampire in the near vicinity that was creating hybrids after the news of the Volturi battle and my birth got out to the entire vampire community. And she wanted to be the one to catch him before the Volturi came back to Washington and stirred up trouble with our family again. They were glad to close up shop for a few days and come help with my project.

Everyone was thrilled to be helping out my new Pack family and to have an excuse to get together again for awhile. Though vampires are usually small group creatures, our coven was closely bonded as a family and that made it harder to just pick up and leave each other. It was great to see my family again after months apart from each other.

Well, almost everyone came back to help. Rosalie and Emmett, after having the experience of helping raise me, had decided that they wanted to be parents themselves more than anything. They were in search of a way to have a kid of their own somewhere in the Amazons. There had been rumors of it being possible, but the vampire community was always full of rumors. After knowing for a fact that vampires could get humans pregnant, anything was possible. I couldn't reach them in time to get them to fly out here for the house building.

"Oh, they're just going to love this house, Renesmee." My mother complimented all of our hard work just as the sun was starting to rise in the sky. It was one of those rare sunny days and my mother sparkled in the light. I loved how beautiful my family looked in the pure sunlight. It was something magical that I was slightly jealous of. I had only a fraction of their sparkle, just a faint glow when the sun shone on me that Jacob thought was radiant but I knew the truth. I didn't have diamonds.

"You don't need diamonds, sweetie." My father commented as he joined us on the porch. "You're radiant!"

"Stay out of my head, Daddy." I replied half-heartedly. I had gotten used to his presence there, though when I was a teenager Bella had tried to block him with her ability to give me privacy. I guess she had her shield down today.

"I'm sorry, Renesmee." Bella flushed. "I didn't think you needed shielding anymore."

"It's quite alright." I smiled at my parents. "I'm just glad that you guys are here."

"Anytime that you need us, feel free to call." Edward said earnestly. "We're more than happy to take a trip down here to see our little girl."

"I promise I will." I said just as honestly. "If you promise to get out of here before Jacob wakes up. I texted him a minute ago and told him that I'm ready for a morning run with him."

"Of course. This is your project. We're going to be over at the cottage for a few days if you need anything." Bella smiled, happy to be going back to the one place she truly considered her home again. "Alice?" She spoke a bit louder. "Everyone done in there?"

My pixie aunt skipped down the stairs with a huge grin on her face. "Everything is simply perfect. There's no way that they won't love it."

Jacob's jaw dropped when he saw the house.

"How did you get this done so quickly? How long have you been working on this?" Jacob asked in astonishment.

"Just since last night." I said as I opened the front door. "But I talked to your dad about it a week ago."

My wolf took a deep breath when he entered the foyer. "It smells like vampire in here. Was your family here?"

"Oh, shoot!" I complained. "I didn't even think about the smell. What are we going to do about that? It'll drive the new wolves crazy to have it wafting around the house all the time. Then they won't come! This was supposed to be for all of them to hang out in! I've ruined everything!"

"Shhh, Ness, it's okay. We can just open up all the windows and set a few fans in here. In a week, there won't be a trace of them." Jacob promised. "We'll do the grand opening then."

"Oh, Jake, that'll be great. I can spruce the place up a little bit." I looked around at my family's hard work. "I love Alice, but she has a way of going over the top. I think some more durable furniture might be better for the living room than these fancy couches."

"I know that you're gonna make this place a home for the boys." Jacob said with pride. "You did good, Ness."

"And Leah." I spoke up. "She's always welcome here, too. This is for the entire Pack, not just the younger ones, Jake. They might not need a bed to crash in, but they might need some food. I'm using a little bit of my fund to set up an unlimited reserve at the grocery store. Anytime a member of the Pack wants food and it isn't at the House, they can just go to the Corner Store and get whatever they want and put it on a tab. Wanna know the name of the account I set up?" My eyes lit up as I got excited about it.

"What is it?" He got caught up in my excitement, too.

"Wolfe." I grinned, using the surname that my mother had put on Jacob and my passports when we thought our best bet would be to run from the Volturi. It was an inside joke between us now. Because the Pack was made of wolves, I knew that at least some of the younger ones might find it as funny as we do.

Jacob's barking laugh was music to my ears. "That's perfect, Ness. I love it."

So it was a week later when I reviled my project to the Pack. There were five bedrooms, three bathrooms, two kitchens, and a living room big enough for everyone. It was bigger than my house with Jacob but I didn't care. This was my gift to the Pack. They deserved a nice place to be able to get away for a little while. Or in a few of their cases, a place to live at all.

Kyle Lake was living with his parents even though he was twenty because he didn't have any money and college wasn't an option for him until he could control his phasing. He would be moving in as soon as he could pack up his stuff.

David and Matt Muddywater now had a place to crash where they weren't sneaking into their house in the middle of the night and getting grounded anymore. Though they were still teenagers, it was a better solution than what Embry had to go through whenever he was a new wolf because it gave the brothers some freedom when getting off patrol. They could say that they were spending the night at "Kyle's" since he would be the most responsible one to live at the Pack House.

Evan Young has a place to escape to when living with Sam and Emily (and their multiplying dependents) gets too much. He's sixteen and perfectly capable under the law of living with Kyle, though Emily said she would much rather he continue to stay with her. I don't see that happening for much longer, though. He loves his cousin and her children, but a teenage boy with rage issues should not be around screaming babies all of the time. A normal human has to fight the urge to shake a baby every now and again, let alone a temperamental new wolf. And whenever his best friend Brody Littlefoot came to visit the Pack, the wolf had a place to crash, too.

Sean Call would still be living with his big brother Embry, but he was welcome to hang out or eat there anytime he wanted. He was only nine years old so until he was sixteen, he would have to be in Embry's custody anyways. In La Push, the legal age of an adult was sixteen even though they had to continue in school until eighteen like everyone else in the state.

Quil let out a whistle when he saw the house. "Man, if I had had this when I first phased..." But he didn't continue. Embry called him over to the downstairs kitchen to show him the deep freezer and fridge already filled to the top with burritos, hot pockets, racks of ribs, pork steaks, corn on the cob, and half of the supermarket's contents.

When I looked around at their faces, I knew that I had done a good job. Secretly I wondered if given the amount of money and resources that I had if Emily would have done as good of a job with the Pack House but I tried not to dwell on that thought. I was the Pack Mom now, not Emily. No matter what she would have done or not done, I was in charge now and I had done something special for all of them. Their reactions were just as I expected them to be upon seeing the new house set up just for them: the younger ones were starry-eyed at all of the freedom it allowed, Quil and Embry were happy to have unlimited food at their disposal, and Leah tried to act like she didn't care about it at all.

"You always have a place to crash, you know." I offered Leah at the grand unveiling. "I made a room just for you that none of the boys can get their hands on. Four for them, one for you." There were three bedrooms on the main floor with the living room, two bathrooms, and one of the kitchens; upstairs had two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen.

Leah rolled her eyes. "That's silly. I have my own house."

"With your mom and Seth when he's back from college. Not to mention my grandpa Charlie who has been getting cozy with your mom recently." I pointed out. "Please, Leah, I don't mean to offend you. This is a friendly gesture that I'm not going to back down on. Just know that it's always open for you if you want it."

"Thanks, I guess." Leah accepted help as well as a suicide bomber.

But when we were taking a tour of the inside of the house, I could see that her eyes lit up when she saw the room I set aside for her. It was on the far end of the house on the second level.

Kyle and Evan set up their permanent rooms downstairs, each trying to get the master bedroom that had one of the bathrooms inside of it.

"I should get it; I'm older." Kyle demanded, eyeing the room.

Evan growled. "Just because I'm younger doesn't mean anything. I'm an adult in La Push, we're equal in the law. You can't try to pull that crap with me."

"You don't even like Nessie and this was her project." Kyle tried another tactic. "So that means that you shouldn't get first dibs."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Evan asked angrily, starting to shake in rage already.

Kyle smirked. "It means, bozo, that Nessie gets final say in the room choices. And since you hate her, she won't pick you."

"Don't call me a bozo!" Evan's temper was the shortest of all the new Pack members.

"Oh, why don't you go back home to all the babies since you're acting like one." Kyle taunted, getting a kick of teasing his Packmate.

"That's it!" Evan lunged for Kyle, thankfully still in human form. Jacob jumped in to break them up and pulled them both up by their shirt collars. The rest of us stood back waiting for their Alpha to decide what to do.

"Pack House is not a Frat House, you guys." Jacob bellowed. "This house is going to remain nice, do you hear me? My wife worked hard on this place to make it a home for you and if you can't respect the rules then you can make other arrangements. Got it?"

"Understood, sir." Evan said quietly at the same time Kyle responded with a bold, "Got it, boss."

"Now, I don't care who gets what room but you will obey the house rules." Jacob sounded so powerful that I wondered if he was using his Alpha voice on them. They certainly were shaking enough for it to be true.

"You can have the room." Evan conceded. "You're right, you're older, you deserve it."

"Thanks, buddy." Kyle grinned as if nothing had happened between the two. "I need my own bathroom in case Carol comes for a sleepover."

An awkward silence fell over the group as we all tried really hard not to mention the fact that Carol Stackhouse was the last person in the world that would want to spend the night under the same roof as a bunch of wolves. Kyle's ex-girlfriend steered clear of anyone who buffed up like Kyle did; she was quick to pick the Pack out of a crowd of natives and avoided them as such.

"Um, I think it might be best if we kept this a wolf-only zone." I spoke up, trying to ease the awkwardness in the room. "That way you are all free to be as you will. The doors are wide enough that if you, for whatever reason, phase in the house and can't change back without help," I tried to avoid looking at Evan and Sean who were the worst at phasing back to human besides Brody who wasn't here, "then you won't be stuck here completely."

"Smart move." Embry commented on the door size.

"How can this be a wolf-only zone if you're here?" Evan asked sarcastically but Jacob growled at him, his hand that was still clutching the boy's t-shirt tightened its grip.

"Nessie is my imprint and she will be respected. Do you hear me?" I had never seen my husband so mad in my entire life. "She is the only reason that you are being allowed the opportunity to live in the Pack House to begin with and if I ever hear you even mutter a thing about her that isn't friendly, I'll have your hide. Capiche?"

"Capiche." Evan was shaking in his size-too-small tennis shoes. Though he seemed more afraid than sincere, he apologized to me. "I'm sorry, Nessie."

I knew it was a big step for the young teen. Emily's little brother had grown up knowing that it wasn't a bear that had attacked his sister-he wasn't an idiot-but he didn't figure out that it was her husband that phased into a giant wolf until he himself phased. Now he was the same kind of monster that wounded his beloved sister and it was all because of vampires in the area...or in his case, a half-vampire.

"It's quite alright, Evan." Though his eyes flinched when I said his name, he held his ground with his Alpha standing so close to him. I didn't expect him to ever come to like me or even stop being afraid of what I am, but I did want him to get used to me around the Reservation-especially the Pack House. I would love him even if it killed me.

That was just what the Pack Mom did; she loved her little wolves no matter how stubborn or foolish they were. If Emily could keep a smile on her face with her scars on her face and surrounded by temperamental wolves that could hurt her just the same at any given moment, I could do the job even though I was the enemy in some of their eyes. I didn't fear any of them because I could defeat them if it came down to a fight. Besides, I had Jacob on my side so no one could mess with me physically anyways.

I felt completely content that night when I went to bed, knowing that I had done a good deed for the Pack. I was finally at home here.

* * *

Besides new wolves, I wasn't the only one who joined the tribe that year. Jared and Kim Cameron had their one and only child, a son that they named Lucas, in February. Immediately after that, Kim got her tubes tied and Jared had a little procedure of his own because his imprint decided that one child was enough for them.

_"You _both_ got fixed?" Jacob had laughed. "Isn't one enough?"_

_"You've seen how quickly wolves multiply..." Jared replied, pointing at Emily who was now pregnant for a third time despite having just given birth to Joey eight months ago. "I don't want to take any chances of disobeying my imprint. Lucas is enough for us and I'm happy with the decision. I am not ready to have a litter of puppies like those two. Just you watch. You and Nessie are next. The wolf baby-making genes are gonna kick in before you know it and then you'll be wishing that you had taken precautions like I have."_

For the first time since I met him, Jared was actually right about something.


	9. Year Twelve

**(Ren: 12)**

Things on the Reservation quieted down after the Pack House was built. Leah, Evan, and Kyle moved in full time while Matt and David crashed whenever they were off of patrol. Sean spent as much time as he could there, too, but Embry didn't like his little brother spending the night over there without him so they rarely stayed the night. Sean was only ten, after all. The unlimited food supply, however, was greatly appreciated by all regardless of if they lived there or not.

Quil had more money to spend on his young imprint, Claire Young, who was now fourteen and always wanting the latest clothes or shoes that all of her friends in Makah had. He would make the drive every weekend to go see her but this week he had her all to himself because she was staying with her aunt Emily.

It was mid-March which meant Spring Break in Makah. So not only was Claire here, but Brody was back for the week and staying at the Pack House, too. I felt bad for the kid having to miss out on being with his wolf brothers all of the time but he was seventeen now, nearly old enough to move here for good and be a part of the Pack full time. Because he didn't have any vampires near him in Makah, his urge to phase was less than that of those living here near me so his anger was much less than his best friend Evan's.

Evan Young still hadn't gotten used to me living here but after Jacob commanded him to be nice to me, the teenaged wolf had been on his best behavior. I knew it was just his instincts and nothing really personal, but I wanted him to like me. I was the Pack Mom and I wasn't going anywhere. I was immortal like my parents and Jacob could phase forever. There was no reason that we would ever have to give up the reign unless we wanted to.

That was what bothered me now that I didn't have a project to focus on. All my thoughts were on my husband and his needs and wishes. I think Jacob would like to eventually hand over command of the Pack to someone else. He had never said those words to me but I remembered stories that my mother told about how he gave up his birthright to Sam all those years ago before the Pack split up when I was born. When Sam quit phasing and my Jacob had to take over both Packs as one again, he didn't complain to anyone. When he was given the position of Chief and made head of the Council, again he never complained. But I could see the toll it had on him. The more stress he was under, the less carefree he was. Even with me, I had noticed some changes since we got married and he began sharing everything with me. While I was away at college, it was rough on him. He was doing everything by himself and things were falling through the cracks. It was too much for one person to manage on their own...which is why I was grateful to help out.

A few months ago, Jacob made sort of a 'Dream Team Council' since Old Quil was retiring and Billy had too many health issues to continue much longer with all of the stress it gave him. The others on the Council were more than happy to finally have their own lives, even at their ages. The job was all-consuming. That was why Sue Clearwater was the first to jump ship when Jacob offered them the proposal. She had only taken the job because her husband Harry died and the Council had to contain five members of the main bloodlines. Though it was through marriage, Sue had been the only real option of the adults in La Push at the time.

But now, that wasn't really an issue. Leah and Embry had both the bloodline and the ability to phase forever with Jacob (at least until one of them imprinted or wanted to give up their wolf). They were the perfect first choice. Though Leah complained about being stuck with Embry for longer than she wanted, she accepted right away. She was Beta of the Pack, of course she wouldn't turn this down if her Alpha asked. Quil was the next choice. His imprint was young and though he would eventually have to give up his wolf for Claire, none of the other members of the Old Council had phased at all. He could do this and make his grandfather proud. Quil was honored to accept Jake's offer, too.

That left one spot open. Seth would have been a good choice. He was actually who I thought Jacob would pick now that he and Tara were done with school and living in a studio apartment above a garage together. (Their wedding was set for June and I was going to be the Maid of Honor). But Jacob did something much bolder than picking another one of his most trusted wolves...he picked me.

As you could expect, this hit the fan pretty quickly. A lot of the locals that knew stories of the Cold Ones and had seen glimpses of the giant wolves from their legends around La Push were pretty freaked out. If they didn't know for sure what I was, they could guess. My skin was colder than a human's, it glowed in the sunlight ever so slightly, and I accidently dazzled those who were brave enough to get close to me. I screamed 'outsider' if nothing else. Actually, when Jacob read the complaint box after my first week on the Council, most of the cards read "Not Quileute" or "Do we really need an outsider running our government?" I thought it was silly that this was what the tribe was concerned about. If only they knew that there wasn't a single human on the Board.

That was another thing that Jacob wanted to change: the awareness of the Pack. He wanted them to be free to be proud of who they were, not hide behind the legends. It was getting easier and easier to convince some of the old Council members that this wouldn't blow up in his face since the population kept shrinking.

The main reason that the tribe was dwindling was because so many of the natives had found mates in Makah or Forks. The population number had dropped in half since my birth. It saddened my husband because he felt like it was somehow his fault. As soon as he took over the Pack, the numbers had been on a steady decline. Whenever he took over the position of Chief, there was a dramatic plummet in the population of Quileutes living in La Push. Billy assured me that it was only natural what with how far behind the times the tribe was. I had to agree with him on that point: they still taught Quileute as a first language and then English as a foreign one at the schools, there wasn't a single wifi router on the entire tribe, and the nearest Walmart was in Forks. At least Makah was trying to keep up with the rest of the world while still teaching their own culture. La Push seemed to want to abandon the 21st century completely and live in the past.

The one thing that La Push did have that Makah or Forks didn't, though, was wolves.

The population size was good and bad news for Jacob. On the one hand, a smaller tribe meant 1) less stress to deal with because there were , 2) more people that knew about the Pack than that didn't, and 3) it would be easier to convince the tribe to accept wolves because most of the natives that were left were related to at least one of them, whether they knew it or not. On the other hand, a small tribe meant that 1) Jacob hadn't done his absolute best job as Chief if they were all willingly fleeing town and 2) those that are left might flee, too, if they found out about the wolves and then the number would drop even more.

It kept him up at night though he didn't ever mention it to me. I would just see the hallway light go on and know that he was pacing. Whenever I would go out there and beckon him back to bed, he would smile at me like nothing was wrong. That was the one thing that I hated about being Jacob's imprint. Sometimes he would try to cover up his feelings because he was worried about my own. If he kept it up, I would have to have a talk with him. But, for now, I was giving him his privacy.

For the time being, the only people who knew about wolves were imprints and the few humans that it had gotten revealed to like Charlie Swan and members of the former Council. Jacob wanted to get the new law in motion within a year or two, but Billy said that the time wasn't right yet. And Jake valued his father's opinion more than anything.

This morning, however, we weren't talking about Pack business. Jake had patrol tonight so we were enjoying his morning off. I made French toast, sausage links, bacon, scrambled eggs, and freshly squeezed orange juice for the occasion. Not that I needed a reason to go overboard with food for my wolf, but usually we didn't have as much time to sit down to a nice breakfast together when we had Council stuff to do that day or Jake had had patrol the night before. Usually it meant a bigger lunch. But today we got to have breakfast food which was my favorite type of human food. Momma had craved it when she was pregnant with me so it always was my favorite, I suppose.

Jacob and I were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast when I first felt a little sick. It was weird. I had never really been sick in my life other than when I first got my period, so it freaked me out when I felt a little dizzy and my stomach hurt. I tried to hide it from Jake, though. He would only worry needlessly and I thought that I knew what was wrong. My body had felt weak lately and I needed blood.

"Baby, are you alright?" Jacob asked, noticing how the sausage wasn't sitting well with me.

"I think I just need some blood." I said, trying to shake it off. Since I had gotten married and moved to the Reservation, I had tried to avoid hunting so I wouldn't freak out the locals. But it had been almost two years without animal blood in my system. I thought that that was the problem. Little did I know.

"Well, we can go out hunting tonight, then." Jacob said brightly.

"Didn't you have patrol tonight?" I asked. It had been forever since I had hunted with my Jacob. Our usual Saturday hunts had been cut short when I went off to college and we hadn't hunted once since we got married.

"I'll get Embry and Sean to cover my shift tonight. I'm sure they'll understand." Jacob smiled. "My imprint comes first."

"I don't want to be an inconvenience." I tried to protest. "I'm sure I'll be fine after a nap or something...I've just been feeling a little weak lately. I'm sure it's nothing."

"No, no, Ness, you need blood. I'm sorry that I didn't think of this sooner." Jacob apologized. "You're half vampire. I should be taking care of both sides of you and not just your human side. I just thought that since you've been eating human food more that maybe your body had decided it liked it better. Ever since you fully matured, you've practically given up blood completely." My wolf looked me deep in the eyes. "Tell me the truth, Ness. Have you been trying to give up blood because of me?"

I sighed. "I just want to be the best Chief's wife that I can be. Someone that the tribe can look up to." Ever since I became a member of the Council, I had been getting judged more often than when I was just the wife of the Jacob Black. I had a vote in tribal matters now.

"Oh, Ness, I'm so sorry I made you feel like you were less than the best." Jacob looked so disappointed in himself that my heart broke. "You are perfect the way that you are. I don't want you to change for anyone, least of all me or the tribe. You're more important to me than any of their opinions."

I pulled my husband in for a kiss, moved by what he had said. I felt silly for trying to be someone I wasn't when everyone knew I was a half-vampire or suspected that I was different. Why try to hide it? Jacob always added logic to my crazy ideas.

That afternoon, we ran past the old Cullen place. Since my family moved on, it had sat deserted. I breathed in the scent of my childhood home as we ran past it. I didn't want to hunt anywhere near the Reservation so we continued on to the small mountain pass. I wanted to stop and catch a deer or two but Jacob shook his giant wolfie head. We had talked about it before we left the house: It had been two years without a drop of blood so I needed blood and lots of it, a few deer wouldn't cut it, I would need to drink from a carnivore. It was the closest thing to human blood that I could get.

Though I rarely had a blood bag and even then it was when I was a baby, my body craved it now more than ever. Jacob was willing to let me bite him but I refused. I was so thirsty right now who knew how much blood I would take from him? My Jacob had always tasted better than any animal I had ever drained. He even tasted better than the blood bags. He was half animal, half human and his scent drove me wild. When we had sex, I had to force myself not to drink from him because he would send me into these tizzies and all I could think about was getting more pleasure from him. I wondered if he would let me start doing that. I had always been too afraid to ask him, even though as a child I had sometimes drank from him. It was different now that I was an adult, the stakes were much higher now.

When we got to the old clearing where my family used to play lightning-ball (the term that I came up with for baseball played in a thunderstorm so as not to arise suspicion of the humans in the nearby town), I paused. So much had happened here. This was where Victoria battled with the Cullens and the wolves, where my Jacob got hurt trying to protect one of his own. This was where the Volturi almost tore apart my family and I almost had to be on the run with Jacob while my family died to protect me...

I shook my head, trying to think of the happy memories here instead. It was hard to do since this place was riddled with sadness at my loved ones' expenses.

Jacob nudged me with his wet nose and looked at me with those big brown wolfie eyes. 'I love you' I could practically hear him saying.

"I love you, too, Jake." I whispered and he grinned at me as if to say 'it's going to be okay.'

I patted my husband's head and walked a couple hundred paces from where he was standing. His scent was so alluring that I made sure I wasn't upwind of him. I closed my eyes and let my instincts take over. I knew that my Jacob was hunting in the other direction because that was how we hunted together. Though we both knew that I would never hurt him, sometimes it was best to stay on the safe side than to take a risk. Whenever Jacob would see that I had my beast drained, he would saunter over to me and show me his killing. Even though he said it wasn't as good when he ate bear without the blood in it, Jacob didn't like to waste so he would only eat our kills after I had already drained them both.

I focused on my kill more than I ever had before. It had been two years, six months, three days, and eleven hours since my last kill and I needed this more than anything. I thought that by living with a human like Jake and constantly being around human food would make my cravings lessen. It had worked for a little while. Out of sight, out of mind. But then I started feeling weaker and weaker and even the slightest hint of blood in my steaks or a cut on the knee of one of the wolves would send my mind to dark places. I thought that if I could just fight it long enough that my body would get used to life without blood. Boy was I wrong.

The first grizzly that I found was on the ground before he had a chance to shake the hibernation out of his eyes. It was early spring and the bears were only just beginning to come out to play. That was fine. Uncle Emmett always said that they were more fun when they were irritated. But I didn't bother to play with this one like Emmett would have wanted. I had a thirst to quench. I sucked on the grizzly's neck, feeling every pint of blood leaving his system and entering mine. I didn't care that I probably looked like a crazy person or that my clothes had gotten torn in the hunt (something Aunt Alice had trained me not to do) or even that I had furry in my teeth because I couldn't wait the two seconds to make this a clean job. I needed blood and my body thanked me for it.

"Nice tackle, Ness." Jake commented from behind me. I took a deep breath and shook out my desire to spring at _him._ If he didn't smell so good right now, this wouldn't be a problem. Even in human form, when he was this fresh off of a phase he still had traces of the wolf in him. God, I just wanted to bite down into his nec-no, stop it, Nessie, this is Jake we're thinking about!

"Um, yeah, I, uh, really wanted this one." I muttered, keeping my face turned away from him so he wouldn't see how much I was struggling not to go bite him. My instincts were going crazy after such a long time without a hunt. I needed to control myself before Jacob had to fight me off.

"Well, my bear kind of tried to get away from me so he doesn't look as clean as yours does." Jacob said with a laugh. "I don't know why they're always less afraid of you than they are of a wolf."

I turned to face him now, but only so I could see his kill a few meters away. Before I knew what I was doing, I was sinking my teeth into a baby cub. The little tike had to have been born during hibernation because it didn't seem to understand that the grizzly next to it was dead. The cub had stumbled out of the cave and was trying to find its parents. Only now his mom and dad were dead. I killed one and Jacob accidently killed the other; Jake had thought he had taken down a large male but it was definitely female-just so large from the baby weight.

Instead of enjoying Jacob's fresh kill, I finished off the helpless little creature first.

I felt the tears on my face but ignored them. There was no time to feel sorry for myself. I was being the monster that I always tried to hide. A baby bear was dead because of me. Though there wasn't really a Cullen rule about not killing young animals, it was usually in the thought process whenever we took down a group on a family hunt. We steered towards the males and the older females who had already bore at least one cub. Edward and Alice were good at determining that last condition. It was best for the ecosystem if we didn't kill off all of the young ones. Besides that, though, I think it was because we didn't like the feeling of taking an innocent life. The older bears had a chance to defend themselves that the babies hadn't learned yet.

I wanted to mourn the baby's loss but with Jacob's kill so near to me, my instincts took over once again and I drained the mother before she got cold. When I was done massacring an entire family of bears, I sat back on my heels and wept.

"Shh, baby, it's okay." Jake tried to sooth me. "Your instincts..."

"Yeah, my instincts are what did this!" I sobbed harder. "I can't control myself anymore, Jake. I don't know what's happening. My body still wants more even though my mind is fighting the urge."

"Maybe you shouldn't fight it." Jake tried to be helpful. Little did he know.

I glared at him so coldly that he was taken aback. "If I stop fighting for even one second, you will be dead, Jake."

Jacob gasped, though he tried to hide it. "I...I smell good to you?"

I nodded embarrassingly. "These last few weeks it's been hard to keep myself from you while we made love. But now, in this cave, with so much of my instincts already taking over, it's really really hard for me to not sink my teeth into you right now." I admitted, so ashamed of what I was feeling. Jacob deserved someone much better than me.

"Nessie..." I didn't want to look at the pity in his eyes. Jacob wouldn't let me look away, though. He reached under my chin and turned my face towards him while he crouched down next to me. "Baby, would it help you if you could bite me?"

"Jacob, no! I won't let you do that!" I hissed, panic clear in my eyes.

"Because it won't help or because you won't be able to stop?" He asked softly. "You know that I would do anything for you, Ness."

"That's exactly why I can't let you, Jake. You wouldn't stop me from draining you if it meant helping myself." I tried not to cry anymore but just the thought of killing my soul mate tore me up inside. "I'm your imprint, Jake. I know what that means. You would do anything that I asked you to do...but I will not ask you this."

"Nessie, I trust you!" Jacob sighed. "I know that you would never take more than you needed. You used to drink a little bit from me all the time when you were younger. I loved that I could make you happy like that, baby. Let me help you again now."

"No, Jake. Just...not right now, okay? I'm too wired from my binge drinking." I cracked a weak smile at my bad joke. "Maybe in a few days when it has settled down, okay?"

"I understand." Jacob looked almost sad that I didn't want to drink from him.

He phased a few feet from me and ate some of the bear meat in silence. What he didn't finish, I helped load on his back so he could carry it back to the other wolves. Jake didn't like them hunting animals unless he approved a hunting trip. It wasn't good for the younger wolves to get self-sustaining as their wolf selves. He liked for them to eat when they were human more often than when they were phased. It was an easy request considering there were enough wolves to where they usually only had patrol once or twice a week. Sean and Embry would be halfway through their night shift by now and might enjoy a snack. Jacob hated to waste food. His motto was that if an animal gave its life then the least we could do was use ever bit of it.

Things were tense when we dropped off the bear meat and headed home. Jacob wouldn't look at me, though I could tell that he wanted to. He was pouting and I didn't understand why. It took me an entire month to figure out why since he never brought the subject up again until I wanted another hunting trip with him: he felt like a failed imprinter because he couldn't make me happy like I wanted.

"Jake, that's crazy! I don't have to drink from you to be happy and fulfilled!" I yelled at him. We were halfway through our argument and he had only just begun. This was our first real fight and I could tell that it was going to be a duesy. "I love you too much to risk hurting you."

"You didn't hurt me before when you bite me." Jake pointed out angrily. "What makes you think you would lose control now?"

"I was a child the last time that I bite you!" I shook my head. "I've fully matured and my instincts are different than they were back then."

"But you're in control of them much more now than you had been. You went your whole college career with only a few hunts even though you were surrounded by humans. And you've been on your best behavior since we got married. Ness, I believe that you are in control, not your instincts."

"You don't understand, Jake..." I tried to think of a way to make him understand better but came up empty. The truth was that he didn't understand a vampire's urges because he wasn't one. I rarely saw my family and Nahuel had all but left my life since I had moved to the Reservation. It was hard for anyone to visit me without having to jump through hoops with the Council. I was surrounded by wolves and humans, neither of which understood who I was.

Jacob's eyes grew wide. It took me a minute to realize that my hand was on his forearm and I was projecting my angry thoughts straight into his head. Since I had stopped aging, my ability had grown stronger. I could now project emotions and thoughts into someone's mind from my hand on to any part of their body instead of just their cheeks. Usually I had to be concentrating really hard to do so, though. Or I had to be feeling an overwhelming amount of emotions.

"You want to talk to someone like you, go ahead." I had hurt his feelings so badly. My sensitive wolf! Oh, I hated the look he was giving me right now. "Take all the time you want, Nessie. I'm sure your family would be more than happy to get a visit from you."

"Yo-you don't want to come with me?" I asked in disbelief. Though we rarely visited my family (and they even less visited me since I got married), Jacob had always been by my side. Had I really hurt him that badly that he didn't want to be with me anymore?

His eyes softened. "Of course I do." He sighed. "But I think that this is a trip you have to make on your own, baby. I can't seem to help you...so maybe they can. Besides, I can't abandon the Pack when they need me." There had been a string of unexplained deaths in Forks lately and Jacob suspected a lone vampire was to blame. He had everyone on double patrols lately to protect our boarders.

"Do you really think I should be going anywhere, then?" I asked. My family was scattered across America right now. It would be a long journey if I chose to take it. "I can have them meet me up at the old Cullen mansion. That way I won't be far from home in case anything happens here."

"Whatever you want, Nessie." Jacob spoke up quietly, dejected still. "I just want you to be able to be happy here."

"But I am happy here!" I threw my hands up into the air.

"You crave things that I don't understand, remember?" Jacob was like a wounded animal, so vulnerable right now. "I'm going to call Nahuel and see if he can stop by for a visit soon. He might be the best one to talk to right now."

"Please don't shut me out, Jacob." I pulled my body close to his for a hug. "I love you so much. And I'm sorry that I hurt you. I never wanted you to feel like this."

"No, I'm the one who should be sorry. I never thought about what it would feel like to you to be cut off from your family and people like you for so long." Jake frowned. "My family just became your family and you seemed to love it here that I forgot that you might be missing a part of yourself. I wish you had spoken up sooner so I could have helped you from the start."

It took an hour longer, but I finally convinced Jacob that he wasn't the bad guy. We were new at being a married couple. Even though it had been two years, there were things that we hadn't talked about. I agreed that I needed to see my family soon but I didn't want to take a trip to see them if it meant not having Jacob at my side.

I called up my father and told him to "round up the troops." When he called me back the next morning, he had good and bad news. Rosalie and Emmett were still out of cell range, but the rest of the family (including Nahuel) could meet up in a month's time. Carlisle and Esme had to take time off at the hospital and Bella had finals to study for (then my parents would be back for the rest of the summer). Alice and Jasper had no problem closing down the shop whenever they wanted, but Edward told her to stay up there until the rest of the family could come for a visit. I think he was jealous that my aunt and uncle lived so close to me. Even though I was a married woman, I was still only twelve years old. I was his little girl and he missed me. But I had made it clear that I wanted all of my family to be here for me.

I was sad that Rose and Emmett couldn't be reached since it had been so long since I had seen them, but I understood. They were still looking for proof that two vampires could have a child together. It was a long shot by far but they had been at it since my high school graduation nearly five years ago. Aunt Rosalie wanted to be a mother more than anything but adopting would only end badly since her vampire instincts would eventually get in the way and Emmett didn't feel right about creating an immortal child, though I knew that Rose would fight the Volturi for one.

It was sad, really. But I understood. I, myself, had caught myself wanting a child. It seemed like every other imprinted couple could get pregnant easily. Emily and Sam had four kids now, Jared and Kim had a son, Rachel and Paul had two little girls...it seemed unfair that people who wanted children couldn't have them. But I didn't believe what Nahuel said about me being able to ever get pregnant. His sister might have had a son but I didn't think that I ever would. Wolves and vampires shouldn't mix. It goes against nature, or so they say, so I've resigned myself to a life without children and I'm okay with it. I accepted that fate as soon as I married Jacob and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

It was settled, though. On May 1st, I would have (almost) my entire family back at the Cullen mansion. In the meantime, Edward advised that I go hunting regularly or whenever I felt the urge to feed. Jacob was more than willing to rearrange his patrol schedule so that we could go hunting twice a week. By the time that my family came for a visit, I was feeling much better physically, though I did miss them terribly.

The morning that they were set to arrive, I was making Jacob his usual buffet breakfast and whistling the tune of my favorite song.

"You're in an awfully good mood today, Ness." Jacob grinned at me. I had been sort of moody here lately. I assumed it was because I missed my family and that Jake had been kind of distant lately. Ever since I refused to bite him, he had been on edge around me. I just wanted us to go back to normal!

"It's May 1st." I commented and Jacob looked at the calender on the wall to confirm.

"Oh, right." Jake tried to keep his smile the same as it was but the light was draining from his eyes. Our second fight ever and it was still about who I was. I didn't like this one bit.

"Please don't get like that, Jake." I put down the pan of sizzling bacon and walked over to him. I didn't care if the house caught fire as long as my husband was happy. "You were the one who suggested that I see them. I think this will be good for me. Especially getting to see Nahuel again."

"Don't you think I know that?" Jacob let out a long sigh, his eyes glistening with emotions. "Ness, I want you to be your normal happy self again...I just wish that I could be the one to bring you back."

"Jacob Black, are you jealous of Nahuel?" My mouth fell open. Of course he was. He couldn't help me by letting me feed on him and he felt like a failure as an imprinter. But Nahuel just by talking to me about what was going on could make me better. (Or so I hoped). "Baby, baby, baby. You have nothing to worry about. I love you! I just need some time to be with people like me. You have to understand that, right? You are a part of the Pack! I am from a Coven. A bond like that is hard to break. Please, Jake, don't be mad at me for wanting this."

"Of course I'm not mad at you." Jacob's eyes softened. "I just wish that I could have done more for you."

"Oh, Jake. There are some things that I can't get from you because you aren't a vampire." I tried to smile. "And there are things that I can't give you because I'm not a wolf. It's just how it is. I love you for who you are!"

Jacob wrapped his arms around me. "I love you, Nessie. So much. I'm sorry that I'm being so petty. Let's not fight about this again, okay?"

"Fine by me." I muttered into his chest. When I looked up at him again, he was covered in a fog. No, not fog. Smoke. The bacon! I dashed to the other side of the kitchen and put out the flames while Jacob chuckled.

"I have never seen a vampire screw anything up before." Jacob laughed some more. "This is one for the books, for sure."

I grinned at his joke, happy that we could try to put this all behind us. No one said marriage was going to be perfect, even with your one true soul mate. There are always problems that will eventually arise. I was just glad that Jacob and I could get through them. "Eh, it must be the human in me."

We settled down for breakfast, minus the bacon which was too burnt to salvage, and then got ready to head over to the Cullen house. We had a Council meeting yesterday to make this official. Whenever my family was headed back in the Forks/La Push direction, the Council had to be notified. Though it consisted of me, Jacob, and three wolves who knew about all of the whereabouts of my family, it was standard procedure.

When we got to my old home, I flung the car door open and raced towards the steps. Jacob was less enthusiastic but he kept up with me. I felt cold arms wrap around me the second that I reached for the door knob.

"Renesmee!" Bella exclaimed, keeping her grip tight on me. "Oh how I've missed you, darling!"

"Hey now, don't squish the poor girl. She's more breakable than we are." Edward commented, reaching his own arms out towards me. The three of us were in a tight bear hug for a good minute or so before someone cleared their throat.

"How about giving some love to your grandpa?" Carlisle, though he looked only ten years older than I did, was exactly what a grandfather should be. Plus, he doubled as a doctor. I knew that whatever was wrong with me, my family would figure it out.

"Hi, granddad." I took turns hugging first Carlisle, then Esme, then Alice, and finally Jasper. Nahuel stood in the corner of the room just staring at me. When I went to go in for a hug, his face lit up.

"Rennie, you look positively glowing!" Nahuel complimented me in his usual strange fashion. "I must say, Jacob is one lucky wolf."

"Don't I know it." Jake grinned, though he seemed a bit on edge with Nahuel so close to me. Technically my hybrid friend wasn't family, though I considered him to be, and that made my husband jealous. It always had even when we were just friends all those years ago. It was nonsense, though. My feelings for him were purely platonic and I knew that his were, too.

"No, really." Nahuel kept staring at me. "There's something different about you." He shook his head. "Must be the marital bliss."

We all settled down on the couches that had sat abandoned for five years since my high school graduation when the family split up. Alice and Jasper had gotten in last night and spruced the place up like my aunt loves to do. We talked for hours about what had been going on in their lives and mine. It was a shame that it had been so long since we were all together. Sure, I had seen them in pairs off and on since I got married but never this much of my family together in one house. I missed the familiarity of it.

When I wanted to talk to Nahuel about my changing half-vampire needs, the two of us went into the office room downstairs for a little privacy. Though I had no doubt that they would all be able to hear me anyways, I liked the illusion of privacy.

"Is it unusual to want blood more now?" I asked, getting straight to the point.

Nahuel shook his head. "With what you've told me, you shouldn't have gone this long without blood to begin with. You might be fully grown, but you are still a young half-vampire. Your body craves what it craves. I'm surprised it let you get away without blood for this long. I hunt once a week

Nahuel rolled his eyes. "You can tell your wolf that he doesn't have to try to hide. If you want him to be a part of this conversation, you could have just said so."

I raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about? Jacob isn't here."

"Isn't he hiding in the room?" It was Nahuel's turn to be confused. "I hear his heart beating, Rennie. He's very close. I suspect in the closet or behind the door. Can't you hear that?"

I knew what my Jacob's heartbeat sounded like and he was definitely not anywhere near us. I closed my eyes and felt for him with our bond. Yup, he was still in the kitchen where we left him.

"Jake is in the kitchen." I argued. "His is the only heart in the house that beats besides ours...and I'm telling you that he's not in here."

Instead of replying to me, Nahuel's eyes widened and he jumped up from his seat. "I figured it out. Oh, man, did I figure it out!"

Before I could ask him what was wrong, he burst out of the room and returned a few seconds later with Carlisle and a very confused looking Jacob in tow.

"Rennie needs a full exam right now." Nahuel demanded.

"Is Nessie sick?" Jacob was panicking already. "Is this a weird hybrid thing? Please tell me that she's going to be okay?"

Nahuel only smiled. "Carlisle can answer all of your questions in a minute. If I'm right anyways...I really should get out of the way, though, because this is something that you should experience alone."

"Well, that was weird." I commented as soon as the door was shut behind him. I looked at my grandfather for help. "I was going to ask for an exam anyways but..."

"Don't worry, sweetie, I'll find out whatever is wrong with you." Carlisle promised and then set to work. I hated physicals more than anything. I had been getting them from my grandfather since I was an hour old. The older I got the less frequent they became-thank god-but I still had to have them once a year. My scheduled one was set for the end of June but there was no point in waiting for one now. It took two hours and three blood tests before he had anything conclusive. What he had to say shocked me, though.

"I suspect a Christmas baby is on the way." Carlisle was beaming at me when he told me the good news.

"Wh-what did you say?" Jacob's eyes were as wide as Nahuel's had been when he figured it out. Of course. The other heartbeat that he heard. It wasn't Jacob's...it was our baby's.

"Renesmee, Jacob," My grandfather looked at both of us with the largest smile on his face, "you're two months pregnant."

That was the first time in my entire life that I had ever seen a wolf faint.

"I-I didn't think that vampires could have children." Jake said when he finally came to in the living room where we carried him (and by 'we' I mean Jasper and Carlisle). Carlisle checked his vital signs but he appeared to be fine, just dizzy from excitement and shock.

The rest of the family was bustling with joy: Alice, Bella, and Esme were in the kitchen fixing something to eat for me, Jake, and Nahuel; and Jasper had gone to retrieve a deer to celebrate in case I was thirsty for something other than human food. Edward was the only one not doing anything-he was just sitting on the other couch muttering 'my baby' over and over again.

"Rennie is half vampire, like my sister was." Nahuel replied for the good doctor. "I told you both long ago that you might be able to get pregnant eventually."

"But I'm a wolf?" Jacob still didn't seem to be able to get his mind around it.

"Yes you are, son." Carlisle's brow furrowed. "Honestly, I wasn't sure if your combination of genes would allow for a child between the two of you but I had done a little speculating since Nessie first got her period. Since her body continues to regulate hormones, that aspect of her will always be human. It's a miracle that it worked out that way, to be sure. I don't know much about your tribe, Jacob, but I do know that imprint bonds are a powerful magic. I don't think that fate would have drawn you together if you weren't going to be able to reproduce."

"I-is it a hybrid?" Jacob looked terrified of being a parent.

Or maybe it was because he was terrified of being a parent to a child that wasn't fully human...a child like I was. I had gone through so much time where I felt like an outsider with my friends and family, even now I sometimes felt that way, did I want a child that would be put through the same isolation that I felt? And what about Jacob. It was one thing to have an imprint that was not human because that is an undeniable bond but I understood why Jacob might not want to have to deal with that sort of thing.

He was a new Chief and the population size was dwindling every year. He was only a few months away from passing the Legend Awareness Act throughout the tribe that would officially bridge the gap between those that didn't know about the wolves that protected them and the shapeshifters who have been in hiding all this time (and probably scare off the rest of the non-wolf residents). I was going to be outed, too. Because there is no way to hide that I won't ever age from the people living in the town. I think that's part of the reason why Jacob is so adamant about passing this law so that the truth will be out there and I, as well as the wolves, won't have to be ashamed of who I am.

Who knows how the tribe would handle knowing that a half-vampire and a shapeshifting wolf had created a mutant creature together.

NO. I yelled at myself as soon as the thought entered my mind. I didn't care. Screw the tribe, screw everyone. Jacob and I created a child together and no matter what his or her DNA proved, the baby was ours. How could I not love someone that was created out of love? I only hoped that the child would be healthy (either for a vampire or a wolf or a human or any combination that we could think of). THAT was all that mattered to me.

I hoped that Jacob would love it just the same.

"I have to run a few more tests bu-" Carlisle began but Jacob cut him off in a terrified way.

"A wolfy-vampire baby?" Jacob's voice was pitched. "Are we going to have a wolf hybrid baby? Please, Doc. I gotta know."

"I don't care." I whispered, touching my hand to my stomach. "Whatever he or she is, I don't care."

"Oh, Ness," Jacob looked at me with those big brown eyes. "I'm only worried about your safety...I saw what you did to your mother when she was human. I couldn't bare it if I was the reason that you were in pain like that. You're already craving blood like she did. I can't let our baby break your bones or weaken your health. I'd never forgive myself for putting you in danger."

"I think I'll leave you two alone." Carlisle took his blood samples and left the room so my husband could talk with me privately. I was grateful for that.

"Jake, you don't have to worry about anything. I'm already taking more precautions than my mother even knew to take." I commented. "My body craves blood so I drink some. My mother was human so she didn't ever think that that might be what I needed."

"Do you really think that will help?" Jacob looked like he was afraid to be optimistic.

"I don't know for sure. Maybe it will and maybe it won't..." His smile dropped slightly. "But I do know that I'm already two months along and I can hear our baby's heartbeat and I want to experience this with you, so please, baby, don't be worried about this. I have a good feeling about this baby, Jake. I-I think I love it already."

"I'm just worried that he'll be a-" Jake started but I giggled.

"He?" I raised an eyebrow. "What makes you so sure that it's a boy?"

"Yeah, well, I mean, as Alpha I hope to one day have a son." Jacob's cheeks were red with embarrassment.

"And if you don't? What if we only have girls like Rachel and Paul do?" I really needed to know this kind of thing. "Are you saying that you don't want a little girl to call you Daddy?"

"Of course I do!" Jake kissed me on the lips, a smile on his face. "I want to have a million little girls just like you...is it so wrong that I want just one son to take over the Pack one day?"

"Oh, Jacob, of course it's alright." I smiled back at him. "I want a little boy some day, too. Or right now. It doesn't matter. I know that no matter what we have: boy, girl, human, vampire, wolf, it doesn't matter. Our children will be little you's and little me's. They will have a strong family history from both sides of our families."

"I just don't want them to hurt you, is all." "You're half-vampire, Nessie. I know you're stronger than Bella. But what if this baby isn't human and Carlisle has to turn you?"

I opened my mouth to protest his fears but I didn't get a chance to.

"Well, you don't have to worry about any of that, son." Carlisle entered the room before I even heard him in the hallway. "This baby, at least, is fully human."

It wasn't until two months later that we found out the gender of our baby; come Christmas, we would have a girl. The second that we did, though, my family came back into town. Edward and Bella offered to put off college for a little while longer so that they could stay with me during the pregnancy. It was a nice gesture but I sent them packing as soon as the summer was over. I didn't need my parents hovering over me every second of the day. Carlisle flew in every weekend to check my progress but since the baby was human, there wasn't really much change week to week like there had been when I was in the womb. I allowed Alice to throw me a baby shower in Forks and to help decorate the baby's nursery with more pink than I ever wanted to see in one room, but even my favorite aunt wasn't allowed to stay with us for more than a few days before I sent her and Jasper away.

This was my baby. Mine and Jacob's. We could do this on our own. I know that we could. We would raise her right. Our little girl. Our little Sara.

A week before my due date, we finally decided on a name. I had had an idea of what I wanted to call our little girl from the moment that I knew her gender, but I didn't tell Jacob for fear that he would tease me. It was a stupid notion, thinking that my Jacob would tease me about something so sensitive to me, but my pregnancy hormones made me a little irrational. But by the time the middle of December rolled around, it was too late to put it off any longer.

"Jake?" I prompted while we were folding towels together. It was one of the few house chores that Jacob let me do since my stomach started expanding with his child. I wasn't allowed anywhere near the kitchen (for fear that grease would splash on me or my feet would hurt from standing) or the Pack House (because of fear that one of them would phase around me and the baby) and the list went on and on. It was ridiculous, but I let my Jacob take care of me because he wanted it so much.

"Is it time?" Jacob's face was a mix of excited and terrified. He had the typical "emergency bag" packed even though Carlisle would be the one delivering our baby at the Cullen house. Since it was this close to both my due date and Christmas, everyone was back for the holidays (minus Rose and Emmett who were still MIA and didn't even know about my pregnancy) and waiting in Forks for news of my water breaking.

"No, no. I'm fine." I smiled. "I just, uh, I've been thinking about names..."

"Really?" Jacob's ears perked up. I had been quiet about the subject until now even though Jake had been pouring over the baby name book for months. None of the names that he looked at suited him, though. He wanted our baby's name to be perfect...just like we hoped our daughter would be. "Well, what is it, baby?"

"Don't laugh at it, please?" I said softly. "Sarabeth Esmeralda Black...for Esme and your mother."

My Jacob's mouth fell open in astonishment. "We don't have to do that..."

"We do, though. I want this child to be proud of her heritage. Besides, this baby is half me and half you. It doesn't seem fair that we only name it after someone I love. You loved your mother Sarah and I know how much it would mean to you, even if you wouldn't ask for it. I think that we should do them this little honor, just like my mother picked the most important people in her life to name me after."

"What about your mother?" My sweet Jacob asked. "Won't she be upset when she finds out?"

"Esme will find it much more of an honor than Bella would." I smiled, imagining the look on my grandmother's face when I told her that a second generation would carry on her legacy. "Besides, if Nahuel is wrong and I only get one shot at having a baby, I want her name to really mean something."

"It's really beautiful, Ness. I love it." Jacob grinned at me and placed his hand on my stomach. "I can't wait to meet our little Sara."

Six days later, we did. Sara was born on Christmas Eve at three in the morning and she was beautiful.

Since I am half human and half vampire and Sara was fully human, the birth was relatively normal. I gave birth to her naturally with relatively little pain since my vampire side was going into overdrive to keep my body regulated. I squeezed my Jacob's hand so hard when I had to give the final push that brought our beautiful baby girl into the world. Luckily he was a wolf or else his broken hand would have taken months to heal instead of just the two minutes it took for Esme to wrap Sara up in a blanket that Alice picked out.

When Sarabeth was placed in my arms, I started crying. She was just so beautiful. She had a full head of hair already-dark black locks like Jacob had when he was a baby-and a tiny smile that Carlisle said looked like mine. I wanted her to open her tiny eyes immediately so that I could see what shade of brown she had (mine was lighter than Jacob's), but she just rested on my chest for an hour content to lie there in peace. Jacob counted Sara's fingers and toes over and over until I made him stop.

"She's perfect, Jake. Stop freaking out." Everyone laughed when I said this.

The whole family was in here just watching Sara sleep on my chest. I know they were all dying to get a chance to hold her. Jasper and Bella (the newest vampires) had hunted every morning for the past two weeks in case the baby came early. The rest of the family minus Carlisle had gone this morning while I was in delivery. With having a fully human child, I wasn't taking any risks of my family endangering her. We would bring her to see Jacob's family later today when it was more appropriate. Though Jacob did call Billy whenever I went into labor to tell him the good news.

"Sara has a kind mind." Edward spoke up a few hours later when she finally woke up and was being passed around. Her eyes (hazel which was a shock for me) were staring up at her grandfather curiously.

"You can hear her already?" Jake's eyes snapped up from staring at our daughter to look at Edward for just a second. Then his eyes were back on Sara.

"Bits and pieces, yes. She does not have a vampire ability like Nessie's since she is human, but she does have thoughts. Or the beginnings of them. There is a lot of love in her heart." Edward said fondly. "A pure heart is rare to find. Even in an infant, sometimes. But Sarabeth is pure through and through. I can tell that she's going to bring great happiness to us all."

"I know that she will." I replied, reaching my hands out to hold my baby again. I just couldn't get enough of her. Jacob couldn't, either. We would be blissfully happy spending every second of every day just holding our precious little girl and kissing her cheeks and counting her toes and smelling her sweet scent like lilacs and honey.

If we could only ever have one child, I was happy that we had Sarabeth. She was perfect.


End file.
